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Pooja is a senior majoring in Biology with a passion for the arts--whether it be drawing, painting, or sculpture. Her dream is to be a surgeon and hopes she remembers art throughout the long journey of medical school and residency. Breach was inspired by her love of the ocean, whales, and conservation. It is her first sculpture and has her hooked on the world of welding and installation art. It may or may not end up at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Stay artsy, Stanford.

Pooja Pradhan

Breach

breach
/brēCH/

noun
1. a gap in a wall, barrier, or defense, especially one made by an attacking army

verb
1. make a gap in and break through (a wall, barrier, or defense)
- break or fail to observe (a law, agreement, or code of conduct)
2. (of a whale) rise and break through surface of the water

Imagine aqua clear water, shimmering with refracted light, illuminating an inconceivable amount of sea life, some not even visible to the naked eye. The white sand shifted with the most dramatic tides I had ever experienced—high tide meant a difference of about 4.5 feet of water and brought in sharks, rays, and numerous species of coral reef fish. Sea turtles floated through the colorful reefs, dolphins could often be seen in the channel and blue skies and sun graced the entire seascape. Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia—paradise.

Many people find it peculiar that I, who was born in landlocked Nepal and grew up in landlocked Pennsylvania, could be so intrigued and connected to the ocean. Yet the ocean is the most captivating ecosystem and will never cease to bore me. My connection to the ocean was solidified during my study abroad experience in Australia where I got to spend a great deal of time on the spectacular Great Barrier Reef. Studying abroad and learning about some of the large environmental problems facing our oceans, namely climate change and human port development sparked my interest in conservation and slowly evolved into saving my favorite sea mammals—the whales.

College allows you to breach many barriers, obstacles, and comfort zones. But this project, in particular, taught me a lot about myself and what I’m capable of achieving. I discovered that I have extremely ambitious ideas for projects that are not always realistic--for example, the whale started out as an interactive glass-blown piece that you could walk inside. I don’t think this is a bad thing, as long as I’m able to realize the limitations early on in the artistic process. Dreaming big allows me to constantly challenge myself, learn new skills and delve deeper into the intersection of art and biology.

Back in September, my artistic expertise consisted of drawing, oil painting and watercolor. I remember Sue and Andrew encouraging us to explore different mediums, especially ones that we had never had experience with before. I remember being skeptical--how were we supposed to master a new medium and be able to convey our message through that medium in two quarters? I also remember being stoked to try something completely different.

Last year I helped to create some artistic pieces to decorate one of Stanford’s venues for the annual Frost Arts & Music Festival. I learned a lot about installation art and watched some fellow students create some giant sculptures. Additionally, my interest in interactive sculptures was piqued when I met the installation artist, Michael Christian. He creates a lot of giant interactive sculptures for large music festivals such as Coachella and Sasquatch. I wanted to create a large sculpture of some kind but I had no experience at all with any type of sculpture--except some small clay pieces which turned out horribly.

So what did I do? I proposed building a 15-foot sculpture of a humpback whale. It was extremely valuable to have professors who supported my crazy ideas and the vision to not only learn how to glass blow but master the art. As fall quarter came to a close, I quickly realized that glass blowing was too expensive and complicated logistically. So as I thought about different sculpture possibilities and materials, one popped up in my mind and just stuck. It was the sculpture of a breaching humpback (what my project ended up being) made out of driftwood.

The idea behind the project was the one thing that stayed constant through out the year. I wanted to build a sculpture that allowed people to interact with a breaching whale in order to inspire the want to conserve these mammals. I had never seen a sculpture of a humpback whale in this breach position, which is pretty unique to humpbacks and I wanted to create a sculpture that would eventually help humpback conservation. Artistically, I had a very vivid and clear picture of what I wanted the final product to look like but how exactly I was going to get to that point was unclear and frankly, terrifying.

It was a couple weeks into winter quarter and I still had not found an artistic mentor--and I knew I needed one. I made an 11-inch model of the idea I had in my mind out of a wire frame and redwood sticks. It was a very rough model but it gave everyone a better idea of the image I had in my mind. The model helped me figure out that the final sculpture would need a frame and that the only thing strong enough to support driftwood would be steel. I had no idea how to weld so I ended up procrastinating a week more, before contacting Jeremiah Barber about being my mentor and getting on board with Breach.

Jeremiah was the missing piece in the project up until that point. He encouraged me over and over to “Go big!” and gave me the push to walk into the PRL on a Saturday morning and simply just ask one of the TAs to teach me how to TIG weld. I probably went in about 5 times during the last couple of weeks of winter quarter for about 3-4 hours each time and practiced my TIG welding technique. I looked like Iron Man and had a blast melting and cooling metal.

The end of winter quarter was also marked my first large driftwood collection during winter quarter. A couple of my good friends and I went to San Gregorio State Beach and chose pieces that were both smooth, had interesting textures or simply had curves that looked like fins. It was a great first collection and it was very interesting to see the beach where people built structures on the beach with all the driftwood. It is fascinating to me that someone can start a sculpture like that and it keeps changing as different people add or take or way certain pieces. It was magical.

Spring quarter rolled around and I was finally ready to start building. I had a plan: spend the first 3 weeks welding in the PRL, spend the next 3 weeks attaching the driftwood to the frame and the last 3 weeks moving, installing and writing this very reflection. Instead, the PRL remained closed for the first 2 weeks and I did not get my steel until the third week of the quarter. The majority of welding and building happened during weeks 5-8. The PRL became my second home and my friends starting calling the “whale” my new boyfriend since I was spending so much time with it.

Learning how to weld was exciting, nerve racking, frustrating, and intriguing. I learned that I have steady hands and am a decent welder. As you can see, my frame did not consist of perfect right angles of steel. There some odd angles involved and I had to cut all the steel at these specific angles, such as 81.5 or 98 degrees. I learned that I am absolutely awful at figuring out angles and how to cut them. Perseverance and sheer determination to just get back to the welding got me through the era, or what felt like an era, of cutting steel.

I ran a lot of my artistic decisions and progress by my peers during the workshops that happened in class every few weeks. And although the workshops did indeed show progress throughout the quarter there were a lot of behind the scenes details that were left out and missed. For example, the design for the frame of my sculpture went through some extensive revamping during spring quarter. It was originally a two piece frame consisting of a slanted cylinder and a dome on top. Jeremiah and I went through multiple iterations of the design and the end product was completely different than the original plan.

The artistic process, as Andrew had warned us all, is not an easy one. It is filled with exploding joy and extreme frustration. I felt as if I was in a relationship with the whale--I loved it deeply and but just could not even begin to deal with it at other times. And I didn’t even have to talk to it! Needless to say it was extremely satisfying to see all my work come to fruition.

Throughout the course of the year there were many challenges, failures, and successes. I believe these three are intimately connected. One does not usually happen without the other. If you don’t challenge yourself you don’t give yourself a chance to fail. And very rarely are success and failure strangers to one another.

The largest challenge I faced was moving my piece once it was finished. I numbered each piece in order and took an absurd amount of pictures of each side of the whale. I removed each side of the whale in a bundle and ended up with 4 bundles of wood that were then transported. But during the move from Jerry to Wallenberg the pieces were mixed up and I had to sort them out again. I had a blast building in Wallenberg with Morgan and during the installation day, but the whale actually turned out slightly differently than the first time I built it. I’m actually happier with version 2 and think it’s incredibly cool that it is not exactly the same and yet still worked out. It makes me wonder how many combinations of driftwood and steel could have created something similar to Breach.

After Breach

I’ve only ever exhibited my artwork on a similar scale once, at the annual Party on the Edge at Cantor Arts Museum. It is always slightly scary and rewarding to exhibit your work to many people. Maybe it’s scary because artistic expression is a reflection of yourself and who you are and putting that on display is an interesting experience. Call me sneaky, but I enjoyed listening to everyone’s opinions of my work, especially when they did not know that I was the artist. I heard more honest opinions that way.

Most people that knew me and what my project was immediately knew that the sculpture was a whale. But I did have one my friends say, “I can see how it could be confusing if you didn’t know it was a breaching whale—it could be mistaken for a teepee with arms. But once you know it’s a whale, it can’t be unseen and there is a lot to see after that discovery was made.” It was quite interesting to hear what people thought it was before reading the blurb on the wall—I got manatee or some abstract form a lot.

This project has consumed my life for the last quarter and a majority of the past year. Now that it has been completed, I almost don’t know what to do with my time. It will always feel like I can do something to improve the sculpture overall, whether that involves using a different type of fishing line or screwing the driftwood to the frame. In that regard, I am thankful for the deadline since I would probably keep coming up with excuses to perfecting it.

Two years ago I went to one of the first TSR exhibitions in Wallenberg. I remember being captivated by the different projects and was so excited to be involved with the program during my senior year. TSR really lies at the nexus of my interests and I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to be a part of it.

As I was installing Breach, one jolly African professor walked by and said, “Well, you’re going to give a tumble. This sculpture is beautiful. What are you making this for?” I explained that it was for TSR, a program where students carry out a project connecting biology and art. His response was very interesting. He said, “Biology and art have always been connected. It is only now that most people see them as two very different things. In Africa, women collect firewood and arrange the wood in sculptural arrangements on their heads in order to carry the wood home.”

It made me contemplate the connection between art and science. Our society has spent hundreds of years trying to keep science and art in two very distinct boxes. And I wonder how much we’ve lost during that time by doing this. Growing up I think I also believed that biology and art were two very different things. It was only once I got to Stanford and started gaining a better understanding of the world that I unearthed the deep connection they share for myself. Biology is not only an inspiration for art but it is also art. Numerous artists try to capture biology’s beauty through their medium, whether it be painting, sculpture, photography or music. And now scientists are even turning towards art--some neuroscientists are creating beautiful images of neurons and some people are even trying to make music out of brain waves and how neurons fire. It is crazy that we have only recently started accepting the connection between biology and art since both are so much a part of human society and life.

Although the artistic side of my project took up most of the year, the underlying message is incredibly important to me. The entire project was inspired by my love for the ocean, whales, and conservation. I hope that my project does its part in inspiring humpback conservation and more broadly, the conservation of our oceans.

It was rewarding to have some people across campus come up to me and tell me how cool my sculpture is–it was an incredible feeling. It was a perfect way to wrap up my experience at Stanford and I hope I can continue spreading awareness for whale and ocean conservation in the future. Breach has defined my senior year at Stanford and is hopefully only the beginning of a lifelong interest in conservation and awareness. I hope to eventually exhibit the whale at either Monterey Bay Aquarium or Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey.

Stay artsy, Stanford.

P.S.
I even put a piece of driftwood with my name on it in the class of 2014 time capsule!