Artists: Aaron Roten x Mark Schmidt

Project Statement: As secondary art educators, we approached the idea of a collaborative project as a challenge to express ourselves artistically, as well as model a collaborative investigative approach to statement making in a way that we could share with our students. As artists, we both have an interest in documenting our experiences and commenting on social issues that concern us. It was important for us to pursue a subject, or concept, that reflected some of our personal concerns for local environmental problems. We kept returning to the story about dioxin in the ground in Verona Missouri, as a result of illegal dumping by the Syntex corporation in the 1970’s. We wanted to bring attention to the consequences of a lack of regulated treatment of hazardous materials and the harmful results that can potentially affect water supply and food sources for decades.
In the development of Spring River, Verona MO, Mark documented scenes from Verona in a series of photos, then created collages from which cyanotypes were printed on paper. Aaron then responded to the cyanotypes with watercolor wash, charcoal, and acrylic paint, in an attempt to further develop imagery that would illustrate the idea of consequences, and the price for environmental neglect.