Using the west-facing window, Stacy Levy created a device to catch the sunset as celebrated in Dickinson’s poem “The largest fire ever known/Occurs each Afternoon – “. The poem is set in glass on the windowsill while the glass panes mediate between the inside and out. In this dynamic piece hundreds of nylon thread tufts are attached to the windowpanes. The stillness indoors contrasts with the chaos of wind-blown threads on the outside of the window. This tangle filters the view beyond to the Hudson River, but catches the light in seductive arrangements in the late afternoon. In choosing this particular part of the gallery in which to work, Levy was interested in Dickinson’s relationship to the outdoors. She was also fascinated by the many references to hair both in Dickinson’s poems and letters, and used this as a springboard for her choice of materials and fabrication methods.

Stacy Levy is a sculptor who explores the complex relationships between living things and natural forces. She works extensively with engineers, architects and landscape architects on permanent projects that make processes and phenomena that occur in urban environments visible to the public. To be completed in 2008, Tide Flowers will mark the daily tidal changes in Manhattan’s Hudson River Park. Lotic Meander depicts the hydrologic patterns of a stream in the courtyard of the Ontario Science Center, Toronto, Canada. Levy has exhibited extensively including solo exhibitions at Denison Museum, Denison University, Granville, OH; Lafayette College Art Gallery, Easton, PA; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, PA; and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Philadelphia, PA. She was an artist in residence at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, ME and Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA. She received the Excellence in Estuary Award from the Partnership for Delaware Estuary Inc., and the National Design Award for Environment from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum for her collaboration with Julie Bargemann on the Acid Mine Drainage & Art project. Levy earned her BA in Sculpture with a minor in Forestry at Yale University, New Haven, CT and her MFA in Sculpture ay Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA. More information can be found at http://home.earthlink.net/~stacylevy/.