Earth Illuminated: The Webb Family Brings Mother Earth to Life Through an Immersive Art Experience
By Hannah Echols Grieser | Parker LIfestyle Magazine
From the time we are born, the Earth sustains and supports us. Whether it seems like it or not, nature is in our favor. It is always working to achieve and maintain harmony that supports our needs. This delicate care has been attributed to a motherlike quality time and time again. In a month dedicated to mothers, you can visit an art exhibit all about Mother Earth—Earth Illuminated. Better yet, the exhibit was a collaborative effort by a mother, Heidi, and her daughters, Madeline and Mercedes (father Nate played an instrumental role, too).
Earth Illuminated is an accumulation of 14 years of work and several more years of forethought. In middle school, Heidi was part of a petition to return to reusable lunch trays when her school switched to Styrofoam. The passion was sparked both by an influential teacher and her grandmother. Her grandmother had a victory garden and instilled in her the ‘old way of doing things’ and appreciation for the environment into Heidi.
Nate and Heidi have been sculpting and creating art in different mediums as a husband-and-wife team since they got married. Their latest project is an immersive experience where the natural world and digital media merge to showcase the planet’s beauty from air, land, and sea in a 13,000 square foot space.
Heidi designed a lot of the exhibits (such as the larger-than-life ladybugs), and Nate brought them to life by modeling sculptures with recycled metals and steel from recycling plants. Mercedes creates paintings on a digital tablet that connects to a computer, and two of her designs, “Nature of Yin and Yang” and “Phone Home,” are displayed in Earth Illuminated. She worked on the topiaries with her sister and created a coloring book as well.
Madeline worked on several exhibits, but her favorite is the umbrella photo wall because of what it expresses.
“It’s meant to symbolize that no matter what happens on the outside, you can always find the light within,” she says.
