Interface of Earth & Sky, 2008

Joy Wulke (b. 1948, California)

Mixed media
75” x 24” x 4”

Gift of the artist

2008.13.01

Interface of Earth & Sky is installed in Beacon Hall, decending from the ceiling above the main staircase.

”I see my work as illustration,” states artist Joy Wulke, “…I tell stories about time and our natural and human environment using familiar images and materials in unfamiliar juxtapositions creating illusion of concepts we think we know. The present, that fleeting moment between memory and anticipation and the relation of all three to what we perceive to be reality feeds the concepts for the stories.”

In this sculpture the artist has severed the leaves, branches and trunk from the roots of the tree which was once a living whole. Here the cast body parts—the hand of man—represent the human interface with nature, the ability to nurture or destroy.

Joy Wulke is nationally recognized award winning sculptor and educator whose work bridges the boundary between visual art and architecture.  She works in the realms of Public Art, Non-profit collaborative projects, and education. Since receiving her Masters of Environmental Design degree from Yale in 1974, she has had numerous exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions in the U.S.A., Europe, and Japan. 

She has received numerous awards, including three Connecticut Commission on the Arts Artist Grants, a New England Foundation on the Arts Artist Grant, and an Achievement Award for Environmental Education.  Her commissions span the country and include work for the Lincoln Center Film Forum in New York, Jewish Community Center in San Francisco and the Louisiana World’s Fair. 

Her work has been widely published in books including New Media in Art by Michael Rush and International periodicals, which include The New York Times, Architectural Record, Art Forum among many others.  Wulke was Project Coordinator for the Art in Public Spaces program for the State of Connecticut from 1999-2004. 

She is founder of Project for a New Millennium, which has initiated collaborative multi-media spectacles and educational programs in Connecticut, New York and Montana. Her works are in the collection of the Beinecke Library of Rare Books & Manuscripts at Yale University, DeCordova Museum, Housatonic Museum and The Polaroid Corporation, among others.