20 years ago, then-Director of the Ceramics Program at Harvard University Nancy Selvage was enlisted by Keene State to create a mural in the then-newly constructed David F. Putnam Science Center.
“I was trying to think of something that would engage the whole wall but not cover every square inch of it,” Selvage said of her thought process going into the project.
At the time, KSC’s science center was soon to be opened to the public. The building boasts over 30 laboratory spaces and includes classrooms for a wide range of programs, including biology, chemistry, computer science, environmental studies and more, according to an Aug. 30, 2004 press release from KSC.
Selvage said she was drawn to the project as a change of pace from two of her previous works, one at the Grand Canyon’s visitor center and one ceramic mural of a rattlesnake at the North Carolina Zoo.
“I thought, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to be pegged as doing naturalistic animals,’ so what I really liked about the Keene State project is that I was working with scientific imagery and imaginary imagery,” Selvage said.
Selvage looked at a map of the Monadnock Region for inspiration and found the Ashuelot River’s shape to be of particular interest to her.
“The Ashuelot River is incredibly animated, [the river has] all these oxbows that were cut off, meandering oxbows, and the shape of the river seemed so dynamic and relevant to different disciplines in the science building,” Selvage said.
Throughout the mural’s creation, Selvage was assisted by three artists: Kim Lenz, Nate Sherman and Selvage’s husband, Warren Mather.
Mather played a role in the screenprinting portion of the project.
“I contributed in the then-new method of photoscreen print on clay for the scientific graphics. But overall it was Nancy’s baby,” Mather stated in an email to The Equinox.
Selvage also spoke to the imagery present in “Flow.”
“I did a lot of research on imagery that I wanted to use that I thought would be relevant to different areas of the mural and [I] decided to have this color transition throughout,” Selvage said.
A July 8, 2009 newsletter from Harvard’s ceramics program spoke to Selvage’s detail-oriented work.
“One mark of her scientific approach is the meticulous research she does for each project, finding the most appropriate combinations of clays, glazes or other materials, and checking and testing every detail, every creature in a mural, every scientific formula or animal color and shape, every metal or method to be used, so that the finished product will please and endure,” the newsletter stated.
Selvage said the imagery process for “Flow” included gaining permission to use high-resolution photographs from scientists and then creating a collage of the graphics in sections using Adobe Photoshop.
Using the sections, Mather created a black-and-white bitmap in preparation for printing.
“The silk screens would be printed with ceramic material onto a plaster slab and that way you could add color behind the image … then liquid clay is poured on that and then it’s dried and fired and glazed,” Selvage said of the process.
Selvage said the group was helpful throughout the creation of the mural.
“I had the assistance I needed, and it’s usually a good working relationship,” Selvage said.
From the first call sent out for proposals to the completion of the mural, the entire process took around two years to complete, Selvage said.
However, one aspect of the project Selvage worked on did not end up making it onto the wall.
“The original idea was to have in the hallway a monitor that would allow people to find out information about every single image within [the mural] and I created a huge template … so if somebody wanted to know what this was, what this image was, what that image was, they could,” Selvage said.
Additionally, Selvage spoke about what she wants the campus community members who enter the building to take away from the piece.
“If you work in the building or you are a student in the building, you wouldn’t take it all in at once. There would always be some little part of it you hadn’t really focused on before, so it would continue to engage your attention over a long period of time,” Selvage said.
As the mural stands 20 years later, Selvage left the door open for a visit back to the piece, which may now need some cleaning due to the effects of human touch on the ceramic, she said.
Nathan Hope can be contacted at
