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May 9
, 2003
Hide
and Seek on the River: Crew Team Participates in Infinity Project
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Photos:
Fred LeBlanc
Crew
team tricaptain Elizabeth Wirsing ’03 throws a “planet”
by artist Josh Simpson into the Connecticut River, as her
teammates look on. The toss was part of Simpson’s
Infinity Project. |
Their four boats resting
lightly together on a glassy Connecticut River, members of MHC’s
crew team paused at the end of their last regular practice of
the year to take part in a most unusual collaboration with a nationally
known artist.
Since 2000, Josh Simpson,
best known for his exquisite glass “planets,” has
invited people around the world to join his Infinity Project,
helping in his quest to hide his works where they might be discovered
one day. His planets, each a unique crystal sphere containing
swirls of brilliant color and detailed abstract shapes, have been
hidden at the north and south poles, on the Golden Gate bridge,
in a volcano in Hawaii—in all, on all seven continents and
all but one of the world’s oceans. But, until Tuesday morning,
none was resting on the bed of the Connecticut.
So it was that team
tricaptain Elizabeth Wirsing ’03 found herself standing
in the boat Mary Lyon, her arm cocked, a cool glass world no bigger
than a billiard ball in the palm of her right hand. As her teammates
counted down from three, she reared back and threw, the sphere
describing a gentle arc before disappearing below the surface
with barely a ripple. (Simpson takes pains to note that glass
is made of silica, one of the Earth’s primary constituents.
It is chemically stable and will remain unchanged for thousands
of years.)
At coach Jeanne Friedman’s suggestion, the team had decided
to mark the event with an impromptu ceremony. “What do you
bring to the river every day, and what do you take with you?”
Friedman asked the rowers. “It’s a good way to remember.”
Each team member answered in turn: “I give laughter and
friendship, and I take devotion and my best.” “I take
power, and I give humility.” “I take love and passion,
and I take energy and love for all of you and for this river and
everything that surrounds it.” Not everyone felt compelled
to seriousness: “I take oxygen, and I give carbon dioxide,”
quipped one, to her teammates’ laughter.
The connection between the Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, glass
artist and the crew team was made by Jonathan and Katie Oakleaf,
parents of team member Bryn Oakleaf ’05, who traveled from
their home in Canton, Connecticut, for the event.
Jonathan Oakleaf, an admirer of Simpson’s work who has collected
more than 100 of his objects, had asked about taking part in the
Infinity Project. It was when Oakleaf mentioned his daughter’s
participation in crew that Simpson became enthused. Simpson’s
wife, astronaut Catherine “Cady” Coleman, had been
a member of the crew team while enrolled at the University of
Massachusetts, and recalled her experience fondly, Oakleaf said.
It’s not every artist that wants his or her creations left
in a ravine in Antarctica, or the rain forests of Bali, or the
deserts of Arizona. What Simpson hopes for is that, one day, perhaps
centuries from now, someone will find one of his hidden planets
and begin wondering what it is and where it came from. “It’s
fun to hide my planets and have people find them, perhaps hundreds
of years from now,” Simpson explains on his Web site, www.joshsimpson.com.
“I got the idea one spring while digging garden beds. I
found several marbles that children had lost sixty or seventy
years ago, and they were as colorful and bright as the summer
afternoon they were misplaced. In the past twenty years, friends
and I have placed planets in exotic and mundane locations all
over the Earth. To find one, you just have to start looking.”
A photo of the crew team with its planet will be added to the
online scrapbook of the Infinity Project, available here.
For now, at least, MHC’s crew teams will know that when
they practice on the Connecticut, their planet will be nestled
somewhere on the river bottom as their racing shells fly overhead.
The
counter is
1,727
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