Natasha Lawyer

My little visual team and I have been slaving away like sweatshop workers trying to get our Earth Day windows finished up. They were finally completed a week or so ago and I finally got photos taken. The theme this year was coral reefs and so all of us Anthro girls took a trip to the Seattle aquarium for an inspiration day about a month ago. Then I had a few days of sketching, material testing and finally two weeks of construction. This is definitely my favorite window that I’ve done so far.

In case you can’t read the chalk writing it says: “LET’S GROW OLD TOGETHER, coral grows less than 3cm annually which means that the world’s largest reef’s are over 50 million years old.”  I thought that was so incredible. It was interesting timing for me personally to do a coral reef inspired window cause I had just began casually Googling The Great Barrier Reef in my spare time. I have been fascinated with underwater things my whole life and have great plans of strapping on a scuba tank when I have a bit more money to take lessons.

One of the things I loved so much about this display was how much we were able to recycle. We were able to re-purpose three of our previous displays for use in our reef. The big anemone above is one of our stir stick spheres left over from Christmas, we just covered it in plaster. Some of our coral filler came from a hanging display made of old mops and cloth, I just dipped them in plaster and added some paper barnacles. Then I used a bunch of old dodecahedrons from way back that the old display coordinator made out of paper mache, I painted them white and tie wrapped, staple-gunned, plastered and glued our coral pieces on so that they formed our structure -no crummy chicken wire for me. (It seems like every time I use chicken wire it looks like I’ve been attacked by a rabid cat when I’m through).

You’ll notice the japanese fishing floats we used as props in our windows. They came from my Grandma whose sister found them years and years ago out on the pacific coast. She gave two of them to me when I was younger so I had those, plus a few more I borrowed from her. I lit each one from beneath and they are so perfect for this window.

The rope, pulleys and hook were repurposed from an old display and I dug them out from my workshop to incorporate a bit of natural fiber into the windows.

I am particularly proud of the sea fans as they were a huge pain. If you know what sea fans look like you know that they are beautiful and amazing and extremely complicated looking. Short of diving down and breaking one off of a reef I wasn’t going to be able to recreate one perfectly so I went for a loose representation using plastic construction fencing that I plastered and tie wrapped to some old branches I found in the woods. A few coats of spray paint and some coral colored watercolor work and they were good to go.

This display was a fun one to work on because there was so much variety. I got to make as many kinds of coral as I wanted and there was such a broad range of material use.  This display includes canvas, coffee filters, saran wrap, toothpicks, stir sticks, melted spoons and straws, rolled paper, parchment, tracing paper, plaster, fabric, mops, paper plates and tissue. If you’re in the area at some point come by and take a look, it’s even better in person. Happy earth month!