The Art of Problem Solving
Zoé Strecker Brings Pine Mountain to Transylvania While admiring the view atop Pine Mountain in southeastern Kentucky, you might not notice the reindeer lichen growing at your feet. Even if you happen to glance down at this pillowy plant, odds are you’ll overlook how it curls at the edges, or how it has four shades of green but appears almost silver. You’d get to know the lichen’s subtleties, though, if you were to sit down for hours at a time to embroider on a photograph of it printed onto silk. This kind of focus fosters a sense of connection—one that shows us how stitching a humble lichen can help us address big problems. In this case the problem is: How can we protect and heighten interest in wild places? Other approaches might have you sit through an eye-glazing lecture about the importance of biodiversity, or learn a fact about the amount of carbon absorbed by a certain acreage of forest. While both are well and good, Transylvania art professor Zoé Strecker takes a different approach; she and her collaborators make art that benefits both natural and human communities—from the coal fields of Kentucky to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. A project of hers called “Lavish!” takes on abstract, challenging economic and social issues through creative work. Transylvania’s Morlan Gallery this past spring featured the embroidery exhibit, which is based on organisms living on Pine Mountain, actually a 125-mile ridge running through the heart of Appalachia. Volunteer embroiderers from across the country stitched vignettes from Strecker’s photos, and she hung them within a circular, wooden structure that measured 22 feet across and 10 feet high. To
