Professor Katharine Owens recently served as an Artist in Residence at the Integrated Day Charter School in Norwich, Connecticut. Over a three-month period, Owens worked with fourth and fifth grade students there to hand-sew unrecyclable film plastic on canvas to create a life-sized portrait of a Sperm Whale that measures 16-feet wide and 8-feet tall. Owens and the students were recently interviewed about the project on Fox61News.
Owens says the image was inspired by the work of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusami (who the students are learning about all year). The artist is famous for adding dots to her pieces, so Owens and the students wanted to pay homage to her work. The portrait includes 267 dots of varying sizes in the background of the piece, representing the 267 species of animals harmed by plastic pollution. The final piece will hang in the school cafeteria.
Owens's latest work is similar to the 60-foot long and 20-foot tall sperm whale that she co-created with the public and UHart community, that is now displayed at Bradley Airport.