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Mary Edna Fraser

         Hailing from Charleston, South Carolina, Mary Edna Fraser spends her time creating batiks, watercolor and oil paintings, monotypes, as well as taking photographs. Though art has been her main focus since studying clothing & textiles and interior design in college at East Carolina University, she is able to combine two of her other passions in the making of her artwork—flying and environmentalism. After growing up around planes, Fraser became a licensed pilot, enabling her to fly over land, sea, and the convergence of the two, and see the world from a completely different perspective. With a brother and father who are also both pilots, the family invested in an AirCoop, a small plane that gives Fraser access to flight whenever she needs it. “It’s really lucky,” Fraser stated. “I was flying with my brother one day in ’83, and I looked down and realized that everybody liked having a sense of place and could relate to a map” (Fraser). This realization led Fraser to focus much of her batik work on aerial images of coastal landscapes, making them slightly reminiscent of bright, colorful maps.

 

           Though her work can easily stand alone, Fraser has partnered with many other people and groups so that her work might express or accompany scientific data and environmental issues. These partners include NASA, with whom she worked to depict outer space, and another scientist with whom she worked to depict deep ocean topography, in addition to working with long-time friend and climate change scientist Orrin Pilkey. Fraser’s partnership with Pilkey has led to the publication of multiple books, including Global Climate Change: A Primer and  A Celebration of the World’s Barrier Islands. Fraser claims that “for the books I discuss each image with the scientists and try to pick the most exciting visual to best express what they think is important” (Fraser). In addition to collaborating on books, Fraser’s work is frequently displayed in public spaces. Though she must often compete for these spaces, her batiks have been repeatedly chosen to be displayed in public spaces by different venues and organizations throughout the United States. The first woman to have a show for her art at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, Fraser is currently she is focusing on the convergence of the Broad and Saluda Rivers in South Carolina for a collection she plans to enter into a competition for space at a local South Carolina library.

            Not only does Fraser create art to draw audiences’ attention to environmental issues and the science related to them, but she is also involved in several environmental organizations as well. One of the groups she is most active in is the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, based out of Charleston, South Carolina. Finding a home in this group as well as a venue for her to practice other methods of environmental activism, Fraser participates in the majority of their projects. Fraser has also created a website called “Delete Apathy” as a space for her to address local environmental issues that she believes she will be able to influence people on. Excited by the thought of helping conserve Earth’s valuable resources in any way possible, Fraser does believe that creating art is the most effective way for her to affect change. “I have to put blinders on and focus on where I can make a difference, and my work on environmental land and water is where I can make a difference. We are bombarded by so much information, both visual and written, so, as an environmental artist, I try to sink down into one issue at a time in the attempt to bring that issue to the forefront” (Fraser).

            Prior to the fall of 2015, Fraser had not heard of art used to address or directly influence environmental issues being referred to as Ecological Art. She considered her art to fall under the category of environmental art, or even simply as environmental activism, while ecological art consisted simply of art created out of items found in nature. After hearing that Ecological Art was a burgeoning movement consisting of many cross-disciplinary and boundary-defying approaches to art that addresses issues regarding the environment, Fraser became interested in the idea of Eco Art moving to encompass her work as well. Gaining only a brief introduction to the movement, though, Fraser still considers herself first and foremost as an environmental activist utilizing art to promote activism. As Fraser looks towards the future—already filled with the prospects of collaboration with Pilkey on the geology of American National Parks and a compilation of a variety of their work throughout the years—she hopes to continue sharing her love of the world with the next generation. “I hope,” says Fraser, “that the next generation will keep fighting the people who seek to destroy the planet with their greed—every generation has to start the battle over again with the next batch of greedy people” (Fraser). Luckily for the next generation, Fraser has provided them with a lot of beautiful, but very powerful, ammunition.

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Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC 29303

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