Artist Janet Echelman began her career as a painter. She received a Fulbright to teach in India and shipped her paints there, but unfortunately, they never arrived. With nothing to work with and bronze casting prohibitively expensive, she looked at the local fishermen and wondered whether it was possible to use similar nets as a new approach to sculpture: a way to create volumetric form without heavy, solid materials. She began using nets to reshape urban airspace with monumental, fluidly moving sculpture that responds to environmental forces including wind, water, and sunlight. 'She Changes' in Porto, Portugal was the beginning of the series of large swooping funnel nets that include 'Her Secret is Patience' in Phoenix and 'Water Sky Garden' for the Vancouver Olympics. She is currently expanding her media and working on a large piece for Philadelphia's Dilworth Plaza which will feature curtains of colored mist coordinated with the below grade public transit.
