MEDIA ADVISORY
Oct. 25, 2002

CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, 271-3119, lisa.lacher@drake.edu

DRAKE STUDENTS TO INSTALL ENVIRONMENTAL ART PROJECT

On Tuesday, Oct. 29, a dozen students in Angela Battle's new course that explores the intersection of natural history and art-making will install an outdoor environmental project in the courtyard on the east side of the Harmon Fine Arts Center, 25th Street and Carpenter Avenue.

The project is designed to call attention to the bur oak • one of the few trees hardy enough to survive on the prairie. The students have created oversize acorns out of cardboard and painted them in bright colors and decorated them with facts about the bur oak. The fanciful cardboard acorns, which measure about a foot in diameter, will be placed in a circle around the bases of two large bur oaks that grace the courtyard.

The installation will start at 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, weather permitting. In case of rain on Tuesday, the installation will be postponed until 9:15 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 31.

"Many people think there weren't any trees on the prairie, but the bur oak is a prairie species that has very thick bark that enables the trees to withstand the fires and winds that sweep across the prairie," said Battle, assistant professor of art at Drake. Her new course, titled Microcosm, Macrocosm, has attracted art students as well as honors students.

In addition to the bur oak project, the class has created a collaborative panoramic drawing of the landscape of the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City. The work, which measures 14 feet in length and 30 inches in height, is on display in the Prairie Learning Center at the refuge, which reconstructs the native plant and animal communities that greeted Iowa's earliest settlers in the mid 1800's. The center is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.