An interview with Emma Skurnick and Jan Burger
Meet the Artists Behind “The Spirit of the River”
An interview with Emma Skurnick and Jan Burger
5/24/2024, by Madison Haley, HRA Plastics Program Assistant
The Haw River Assembly has a long history of combining art and activism. You’ll know this well if you’ve ever attended our Haw River Festival or Learning Celebration, or if you’ve seen any of our beautiful t-shirts or signs. For decades, Emma Skurnick and Jan Burger have been an enormous part of that magic and we were overjoyed when they agreed to take on another project – a sculpture made of litter.
Over the past few years, our Trash Trap Program and plastic pollution work has grown and we were looking for a new way to bring some beauty to the advocacy. By working with Emma and Jan, we’ve been able to bring to life the “The Spirit of the River,” a beautiful creature made from the litter we’ve found at Trash Trap Clean Outs and during our annual Clean-Up-A-Thon.
Throughout this project, Jan and Emma have been beyond generous with their time and talents and kindness. To give you just a brief look into the minds of these artists, we asked Jan and Emma a few questions about their process, their collaboration, and their favorite pieces of litter.
Please enjoy their responses, and make sure to visit this beautiful work of art! The Spirit of the River is currently in Saxapahaw next to the Post Office, but will be moved to the Chapel Hill Community Center Park later in the summer. If you haven’t yet and are able to contribute, we’re still hoping to get closer to our fundraising goal – all funds go directly to the artists.
Interview
You both have a long history of supporting both the Haw River itself and the Haw River Assembly. Could you tell us about how you got involved with HRA?
[Jan] In ‘94, I joined the HRA as an intern to help get ready for the Learning Celebration and met the wonderful community of people that volunteered for it. I crewed on the Learning Celebration for more than a decade, often doing all three or four weeks. I got really involved in being part of the crew, learning all the stations, helping develop some of the stations and just being part of the community of people all working on that together, people that are ready to help. It’s a very giving group and it developed that ethos as just a regular part of life. You go to a potluck with people from the Learning Celebration and they’re the ones doing the dishes at other people’s houses.
[Emma] I was living in San Francisco with Jan when he suggested that we move to North Carolina, and I think one of the very first things we did when we moved here was take part in the Learning Celebration. That was my introduction to this community – a ready-made North Carolina family for a newcomer like me. I did the Learning Celebration numerous years, and when I was in my 20s Elaine asked if I would be on the Board of Directors, which was a surprise and an honor. Now the Haw River Assembly is a great neighbor, right down the road.
[J] There’s something about working on the Learning Celebration and doing other projects with the Haw River Assembly where it helps give you a sense of purpose outside of your regular career, life, and family. Where it’s something we’re all concerned about and on the river’s team, it gives me a sense of ownership and belonging to this area. Feeling like the river is not just a dirty source of water, but a thing that I’m connected to because I have worked to take care of it and learned about it and did all the things that we asked the fourth graders at the Learning Celebration to do.
We were so excited and grateful when y’all agreed to create a sculpture to support our litter and advocacy work. What drew you to this project and how did you come up with the idea of this Spirit of the River?
[E] It seemed like a dream project. It pulled together everything that is important to me and that I love doing, and it allowed me to tell a story in a way that I wouldn’t normally choose, because I’m more of a painter than a sculptor nowadays. Jan and I have been making art about the spirit of the river – the interweaving and interactions between what humans do and what nature needs – for decades. He and I have, individually and in collaboration, made paintings, puppet shows, quilts, murals, t-shirts… all telling a very similar story. A story about how what humans bring into the world impacts all of our neighbors: the animals and land and rivers around us. To have a chance to create this sculpture out of trash, thanks to you all, your Trash Traps, and your labor, and to get to collaborate with Jan and bring it back to the community, it just seemed like the best opportunity.
[J] We’ve been toying around with the idea for years about making something sculptural, figurative, puppet-like that could live outside and we weren’t sure how to do it. Then when we started talking about it and thinking about trash, we were like, “oh, we can figure this out”. So it was a neat challenge to be able to do something similar to what I do with puppets, and try to translate it into something that would be more long-lasting and weather-resistant. And also stationary rather than animated, so you have to tell the story with what and how you sculpt and let it speak for itself. It was a neat challenge.
[E] And the way we started the concept, we were on a road trip to Virginia, so we had hours to just drive and talk, describing ideas we had for sculptures to each other as we went. It was just sort of just like, “What if we did this? What if we did that? But what if, what if…?” It was really fun bringing these shapes into being in our imaginations, and sharing them with each other before we even sat down and sketched anything. We talked about abstract shapes, jellyfish, flowers… We talked about bringing in school kids and making a thousand fish out of plastic bottles; having a river full of critters made out of plastic. The process of honing in on an idea that seemed both poetically beautiful and feasible was mostly done verbally. When we finally got a pencil and paper in our hands, we both sketched up something that was pretty similar in style, which means our process worked.
[J] And we were inspired by the walks down by the river itself and looking at the trash, which I’ve become sort of obsessed with collecting, kind of as a pastime. The way that trash combines visually with all the natural bits of detritus in the river, all the twigs and beaver sticks and grasses that intertwine with the bottles and styrofoam. It’s a texture that we thought would be beautiful as a body, with the plastic bags and bottles to represent the water. It’s funny how it flipped our brains and made us kind of excited when we found beautiful or unusual trash to bring to the sculpture. Being able to tell that story just with the materials we could find, and showing the natural materials and the plastic materials interwoven, seemed exciting as a way of embodying our own experience of the river.
Could you speak more to the collaboration of creating this creature? What was it like bringing together your two styles and knowledge?
[J] Well, I already make puppets, so I had some ideas about how it should be constructed and how to make it modular so that it wouldn’t be too hard to move. But Emma has been a sculptor for decades and has a really great eye for design and composition and color. I was a little bit bossy when it came to things like, “I think we should make it come together like this.” But then when Emma started attaching things, I would just walk away and let her make all the choices about the way that it would look and the composition and the forms and things like that.
[E] I have a lot of fun when I’m out in the world and on a scavenger hunt for elements that could work. I would think, “We need something round and rigid. What can I find in the world that’s round and rigid?” I’d lie awake in bed at night, or take a walk, and just be mentally scrolling through the list of possible things that might serve the purpose. Knowing that I wanted everything to be scavenged made it really fun. Imagining a bicycle wheel, and then imagining replacing it with a piece of irrigation pipe, and then imagining replacing that with a bent hoop of grape vines, and cycling through all of the possibilities.
Then I would come up with something that I thought would be perfect and present it to Jan and he would be like, “I don’t think that would work”. And I’d say, “Let’s just try it!”. Jan’s process is to doubt first – he thinks of all the ways that things could fail. And I’m more of a, “let’s try it and see if it fails or not”. So that definitely took some practice: making space for each other’s work styles. He also likes to draw six or seven diagrams. He’ll sit and draw an idea, and then draw it again, and draw it again. I prefer to work things out in my imagination in three-dimensions, but in order to communicate with Jan, I had to draw.
[J] One of our inspirations was a mural we made together for an environmental studies library at Elon University. To practice drawing that together, we’d made a sketch of a river with a face that had its body made out of plants and animals swimming around the river – it was like a landscape that was alive. When we were contemplating the different creatures for a trash sculpture, it dawned on us – why don’t we just make the river and put all the stuff in it?
Were there any ways that the process of making this sculpture challenged you?
[E] I feel like it challenged me in a way that was absolutely recognizable – not new at all – because I go through this challenge with every work of art that I create. I start out with something in my imagination, or a little sketch on a piece of paper, and I’m full of hopes and aspiration and possibility. And then I start building it, and I see what it looks like in the real world, and I hate it. It’s so disappointing.
But at this point, as an artist, the moment that I think, “I hate this,” that’s when I know I’m just not done. I need to keep working. There were weeks at a time where I just didn’t think this sculpture would work at all. And that’s when I knew that I needed to go out there and put in another bunch of hours – weaving in more plastic bags, attaching bottles, tying on bundles of beaver sticks…. It was a process of accumulation, until the sculpture really did start to look like the river which is made up of so many different things. You just have to have faith that, over time, the accumulation will add up to something beautiful.
[J] It wasn’t exactly a challenge, but it was fun to figure out how it was going to exist in the world and survive and stand. It was cool working with Madison and Steve [Esthimer] to try to figure that all out.
I wasn’t too worried because I’ve made lots of crazy stuff over the years and I knew we would figure this one out, but I didn’t know the answer when we started. By talking about it and looking at pieces of junk, we came together and figured out what would work the best.Getting to work with metal workers is something that I don’t do with every project, I’ve done it some but never welded anything myself, so it was neat to be able to talk in a different material language.
Also to get to actually physically enter the world to collect material was great. Either by going down to the river and picking up stuff or spending some sessions in areas where we felt the call to do our own mini clean-up-a-thons. And then to go to the trash trap in Durham with all the volunteers and wade into the water, to actually get wet and start pulling out the garbage, was very visceral and made quite real the ideas that we were putting together. It’s fun and weird and humbling to have the material that you’re working with be the antagonist to your story.
Was there any piece of litter that you were particularly drawn to or influenced by?
[E] Wow, that’s a great question. There were specific pieces of litter, like a Halloween decoration spider that our daughter found – she was so excited to add it to the sculpture. But for me, it was more the families of litter: the family of bottle caps, the family of plastic bags. It’s a tension, because even though they are a type of pollution, when you start to pay attention, they are so beautiful. There are so many different kinds of bottle caps, and so many different kinds of plastic bottles. And there were some plastic bottles that I really enjoyed working with and other ones that made me frustrated every time I tried to work with, like with Mountain Dew. To have that intimacy with the trash was unexpected for me.
[J] There was a black panther plastic toy that really got me, because it was such a cool sculpture of an animal, kind of big and fierce looking. We had to yank it out of a detritus pile by the river here in Bynum, and it was all coated with mud. It felt like such an incredible prize, to have something that has that evocative feeling of it being a really great kid’s toy that has now become nasty garbage that’s floating to the ocean. To pull it out of the river and have it embody some aspect of funny, tragic trash in the sculpture itself was a weird, cool fate.
How do you think art can contribute to environmental advocacy and conservation?
[J] I think that river protecting, whether it’s picking up garbage, or talking to people about not polluting, or working on advocacy, or trying to get laws passed, can often feel a little bit dry and leave people slightly less inspired.
So from the beginning of our work on the Haw River Assembly Learning Celebration, I’ve always leaned into the artistic part of trying to win over people’s hearts and help them feel the story. The trash trap itself is a really cool machine, but it’s down in the river itself – unless you get down into it and have the experience of clearing it out, you don’t necessarily get the full story. I think by telling a story through sculpture, you can give people a visual and allow them to spend time with it. It lets them be part of the narrative of, “Oh, this is made out of natural materials and found materials” and, “Oh, that’s something that I’ve touched before.” It creates a connection and an intimacy, perhaps, for somebody who experiences it. It gives life to the garbage itself, giving it its space and its due time, honoring it rather than just having the garbage be in the garbage space and the humans be in the human space. It brings them together to say, “Hey, this is our stuff, we made it, let’s look at it”.
Also, it does feel like garbage has become the new art medium, maybe just in my world, but it seems to be common. I’ve seen a lot of garbage sculptures popping up here and there, and it feels like the medium of the moment. Throughout history, artists have always made their art out of their world. Whether it was bone or stone or pigments from the land that they were on. And now garbage is our medium, it’s what we have, and it’s everywhere. Almost by default, artists work with material that’s cheap and easy to find, and now litter is what’s there and readily available.
[E] I think that one of the main purposes of art is to interrupt. To interrupt the flow of the ordinary, everyday, and to encourage a person to stop and pay attention.
With an environmental movement, as with anything that’s important, we want to find as many formats as possible to encourage people to stop and notice what’s going on. Whether it’s through advocating for a new law to be passed, or standing on a street corner protesting, or writing a book, or putting a sculpture in a public park, it’s just a constant reawakening – pay attention, pay attention, pay attention.
I love that we work together to do that in as many ways as we possibly can. The sculpture is just one more drop in the ocean of “Pay attention, this is what’s happening.” People who walk past this sculpture will encounter another reason to pay attention. In as many ways as we can, we look to surprise people with our storytelling and keep bringing our ideas back to the front of their consciousness.
You’re both such talented artists, but beyond that it’s inspiring to see the community you’ve built across the watershed as artists, advocates, and friends. Our question is – what advice do you have for folks who are looking to be part of and build community, specifically around art and advocacy?
[E] My advice is to just start. The hardest part is deciding that now is the time – people often think that they need to know what the destination is before they begin. Just start right now, today, with the smallest step you can take. It might be calling a single friend and saying, “Let’s go take a walk,” or “Do you want to sit and draw with me?”, or “I’m going to cook you dinner, let’s see what happens.” And then allowing it to grow in whatever direction it grows.
Because it’s amazing – Jan and I have been doing this work for 30-something years, and when we started, we had no idea what we were going to do. We were 20 years old, making rubber stamps and drawing in our sketchbooks and hand-painting t-shirts and finding people who we thought were exciting and inspiring and helping them. When we were living in San Francisco, Jan found a group of puppeteers and he said, “Can I come hold a banner in your protest?” And now that’s grown into Paperhand. And I found friends who wanted to make quilts out of their dreams, and we would figure out how to sew those together. You just don’t know where anything is going to lead and you have to be okay with that. It’s a fun place to be.
[J] I think that people love being a part of something bigger than themselves. A story that we can tell ourselves that we’re a part of is like breathing fresh air. Volunteering on a project that people can collaborate on and feel inspired by, one that feels like it’s bigger than themselves, is a fantastic way to connect with other people and inspire more folks to join. People love helping and collaborating, volunteering, and making art together. Just by saying “I’m going to do this,” you don’t even have to know how to make art, people who can do those things will show up. It’s more of just being willing to try, or being foolish and ambitious enough to say “I could make that.” Getting into trouble, and not being too worried about it.
Do you have any final thoughts you’d want to leave with folks reading this?
[E] Can you tell people about the volunteer days to clean out the trash trap?
[Madison] Yes, thank you Emma! Here is the link to sign up form, we have Trash Trap clean outs once a month.
[J] Yeah, cleaning up the trash trap with Niko was great. It was like an experience that people pay for. I remember Emily was talking about wanting to lead people on a snorkeling trail. And yeah, that’s cool, that’d be fun, but that just got my brain going – that’s kind of what we’re doing right now. Everybody gets a set of waders and gets to just go and get it, see what you can find. It’s treasure hunting, and having an excuse to dig bottles out of the riverbank and see what’s there.
[E] And see yourself make a difference. I see the frustration too, it’s just so visceral.
[J] Niko was just so excited to count 200 pieces of styrofoam. To have that experience for an adult or a kid is just really cool. And some of the people walking past us on the trail kept saying “Oh my gosh, thank you so much.” I think we spend so much of our lives disconnected from the things that matter to us that we don’t have a way to physically contribute to helping things be better. So then when we get to, it’s like an amusement ride, you know? Just, wow, we get to do this? It’s like working in a soup kitchen, it’s like you get to actually do something. It fulfills a lot of aspects of the work that needs to be done, to convert people into caring, to be educational.
[E] I’m inspired. Every month when I’m free to go to the trash trap, I’m going to invite a different friend to come with me and make it like a coveted thing to do.
Emma Skurnick is a full-time artist and illustrator, with paintings exhibited and published across the country and world (her website). She hosts art classes and has published a book on the magical town of Bynum.
Jan is one of the Co-Founders and Directors of Paperhand Puppet Intervention. Every summer Paperhand puts on shows at the Forest Theater in Chapel Hill, and is always open to proposals for collaboration (like this one!).
