Where Art and Science Intersect

Dominick Leskiw, Colby News, January 3, 2023

Viva Goetze ’24 is helping transform a small room inside the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath into a vast seascape. Oceanic paintings, sculptures, fabrics, ceramics, videos, lights, and sounds coalesce in Sea Change: Darkness and Light in the Gulf of Maine, the newest installation in an ongoing climate change awareness project by Maine-based artist Anna Dibble.

Opening in early February in one of Maine’s most popular museums, the ambitious art installation is a collective endeavor involving several artists, researchers, educators, and college students. Goetze, an environmental science and studio art double major, got involved through Colby’s Buck Lab for Climate and Environment.

She was looking for a summer painting project following her sophomore year when she heard about the opportunity to work on Sea Change from Gail Carlson, director of the Buck Lab and assistant professor of environmental studies. “When I saw it was environmental science and art, I thought, ‘I should try that out,’” Goetze said. “It was perfect.”

Colby established the Buck Lab in 2017 through a generous gift from Trustee Sandy Buck ’78 and his wife, Sissy Buck. The Buck Lab supports student internships and research projects in the sciences, as well as at the intersection of environmental studies and other fields such as English, philosophy, and the visual arts.

Such an interdisciplinary mission is in line with the varied interests of the Bucks. Sissy is a printmaker and book artist. Sandy, an American studies major while at Colby, is an avid conservationist and philanthropist. “He’s one of these donors who just is so passionate about Colby,” Carlson said. “He’s been so supportive of the Environmental Studies Department and so interested in helping students become environmental leaders.”