Artist connects to environment through debris

'Projected Amnesia: Recent work by Marilee Keys' Through Sept. 29. Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Saturdays. Gallery in the Square, 5850 Ellsworth Ave., entrance along College Street, Shadyside. (412) 361-3808. Photos by Sidney L. Davis/Tribune-Review

''At midday, I reached my long-wished-for pines, and lost no time in examining them and endeavoring to collect specimens and seeds. New and strange things seldom fail to make strong impressions,' wrote John Muir (1838-1914), America's preeminent naturalist and conservationist, in his journal dated Oct. 26, 1826.

Like Muir, local artist Marilee Keys is a collector of nature's debris. Twigs, rocks, bark, pine cones and needles are but a few of nature's cast-offs the artist keeps in her home and studio in Forest Hills.

Collected from her travels as well as her garden, these things have seemingly made strong impressions on Keys. Impressions that will remain with the artist long after her solo exhibit, 'Projected Amnesia,' on display at Gallery in the Square in Shadyside, is over.

And the artist says that's important to her, because at the end of this month Keys will be moving with her husband, Bruce Lindsey, to Auburn, Ala. Lindsey, a former professor of art and architecture at Carnegie Mellon University, has accepted the position of head of the school of Architecture at Auburn University. On a tree-covered hill in Forest Hills, 53 steps ascend to the front door of a bungalow that has been Keys and Lindsey's home for the past 11 years. Keys describes living in the home as 'like living in a tree house.'

The back yard is a garden full of native plants and perennials. Raspberry bushes wind around a vegetable bed in the shadows of a sugar maple and sycamores.

'My environment and my garden is quite a large component of my inspiration for my work,' Keys says. 'For me, this show is pretty much about saying goodbye to my garden and environment.'

Keys makes her farewells in the form of elegant drawing, collage, weaving and installation pieces. Simple in composition and color, the pieces incorporate natural forms either directly or indirectly.

'I like using simple materials that are recycled from nature,' Keys says. 'Things that you would not normally think of using.'

Upon entering the gallery, the viewer is drawn into Keys' environment by the central piece in the show, 'Pine Line - Suspension.' The piece consists of several pine needles suspended individually from the ceiling by thin threads of monofilament.

Hung at eye level, each three-needle bundle is tied at the center. This allows them to balance and sway at the slightest breeze, creating a feeling of mass movement and energy as though water rippled through air.

The piece is a natural progression from previous pieces where Keys weaved pine needles and other plant life into matte white sheets of Mylar. Four examples of the Mylar-weaved pieces are in this show.

Part of Keys' 'Pine Line' series, four 12- by 12-inch squares of Mylar are punctured and interwoven with pine needles. Hung side by side, the needles seem to frolic and flow between the squares. Each square is attached to the walls with pins so that they are held an inch from the surface.

Keys says she considers the wall-mounted and suspended 'Pine Line' pieces to be drawings, and that she sees them as 'taking drawing off the wall.' At night, the properly lighted pieces are highlighted by shadows that dance on the wall, creating a dialogue between line and shadow.

Another installation piece in the show is 'Square of Sycamore Bark.' At 60 inches square, the piece dominates one wall of the gallery. It is comprised entirely of pieces of sycamore bark that Keys has pinned to the wall in the collective form of a perfectly trimmed square.

Acquired from her yard, Keys says she likes the curling bark of the sycamore because, 'it echoes some of the calligraphic marks in the other pictures.'

Those 'calligraphic marks' can be found in the remaining pieces in the show that take the form of either graphite or charcoal drawings on vellum or Mylar.

Three large pieces are studies of a sugar maple Keys can see from her studio window. Seemingly abstract, they are drawings of the interplay between branches and light. Primarily black and white, they have been drawn, erased and scrubbed with intuitive mark making.

'These drawings, in particular, are much more calligraphic than ones I've done in the past,' Keys says. 'I'm interested in movement in a picture - how the lines move in and out.'

Smaller studies of seedpods and branches are a bit more detailed. In these works, Keys says she finds beauty in simple repetitive gestures that, according to the artist, 'freeze the memory.' These frozen images anticipate forgotten memories, hence the show's title, 'Projected Amnesia.'

However, like Muir, the artist will find 'new and strange things' in her next environment that will make their own strong impressions. About her pending move, Keys says, 'It will be sad to go, but in some ways I am looking forward to change and starting a new garden.'