Hail – Climate Change    from the series The TEN MODERN PLAQUES                  © 2012 -  2024    Harriete Estel Berman

19” ht. x 70” w.  x 4” d. (Installation dimensions of four elements.)

Post consumer recycled tin cans, brass screws, steel screws. Aluminum tubing, silver rivets, paint.

Each letter hangs on a nail on the wall independently. There is an adjustable bracket on the back.
The right extended wave has two posts that insert into the wall.

Hail: Climate Change was started in 2014, but I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome, even though the environmental impact is more relevant than ever.

A grant from MFJC (Memorial Foundation of Jewish Culture) allowed me to dedicate the working hours of my assistant for four months and covered the photography to finish this artwork. The entire reassembly of this artwork was very complicated and multi-layered assembly required two people for attaching every part.

In the past four months:

• The structure of the three Hebrew letters was cut apart.

• Each letter was recut and reshaped. The three Hebrew letters were made smaller or larger to create the impression of parallax (moving from left to the right) increasing in size as a metaphor for the increasing impact of Climate Change. (See below for a debate about right to left or left to right.)

• The construction was reconsidered so that the concept and narrative of Climate Change was conveyed in the shapes, color, and dimension of this artwork.

• I fabricated over 75 new pieces from post-consumer recycled tin cans.

• The sky of each letter was completely redone to transition from a 20th century clean sky to the dark stormy sky of Climate Change.

• I reinvented new water and waves to transition the water from smoother calm water (on the left) to rising water level of stormy, turbulent water (on the right.) 

• Professional photography was just completed.

Looking closely at images of Hail: Climate Change

Close up image of the water on the left Hebrew letter (below.)

The waves and water on the left Hebrew letter is calm. This left side is the 20th century where the concept of climate change and our impact on earth was not important. As the calender moves closer to Earth Day, we should think ahead to our impact on the environment. Art can address this important topic.

(Below) Close up photo of the water on the middle letter. Study the image for the oil mules - a reference to the impact of fossil fuels on climate change.

(Below) Close up photo of the water on the right most letter. The water is more turbulent and layered. Houses are floating in the water.

People always ask…..”How did you get the colors?” All of this is constructed from post-consumer recycled tin cans. These are plain ordinary tin cans from cookies, crackers, and other consumer products.

I am taking tin cans that would normally be thrown away to create my artwork. These materials would normally be thrown away or best case recycled. The consumer goods contribute to the over abundance, the over consumption that contributes to climate change.

The photo below was taken more at an angle to look behind the layers and layers.

Look closely at the photo (above) of the layers of tin cans created to portray turbulent waves and water caused by climate change. Notice the house submerged in the water.

If you are interested in the construction of this piece, look behind the tin layers where you can see the screws and brass tubing that hold this together. I paint all the screws and rivets on the surface of the tins….so they become more or less invisible. It is only by looking behind the layers….that you can see the construction.

The next photo is even closer.

Look closely at the photo above. The tin cans are formed using my extensive metalworking skills to be dimensional, moving from flat to three dimensional layers of waves and turbulent water.

(Below) look at the sky of the middle Hebrew letter. The sky is constructed from recycled tin cans, like the rest of this artwork, but this close up reveals more about the images from the tin cans used to create the sky. The “clouds and sky” are a mucky to brilliant orange to brown pallet which I would have consider improbable to impossible except we experienced an apocalyptic sky of brilliant orange in 2022 (when forest fires in California were caused by dry lightning during an extreme drought.) In 2023, the East Coast had a similar experience when forest fires in Canada spilled pollution over the east coast of the United States.

Look at the hand in the clouds. I think that this worked well to delineate the cloud from a distance, but looking closely, think about how our actions can impact climate change.
The Factory shape in the sky was formed from a tin can printed with peanuts and burlap bag. from a distance, The peanuts look a lot like smoke from the stacks..

In the image (above,) you can also see the oil pumping mule. For the last century, fossil fuels are a significant contributing factor to climate change.

I will post fabrication images in future posts on this page, if you are interested.

On the right side of Hail: Climate Change the water is rising half submerging the Statue of Liberty.

The extended wave is symbolic extension of the rising water. If we don’t take action the ocean water will be higher, the consequences of climate change are serious and expensive.

Right to left or left to right - a debate

All of the artworks in the 10 Modern Plagues start with the Hebrew lettering for each respective biblical plague. Some of you will recognize the lettering. Many may not realize that Hebrew is read moving right to left.

English is read, left to right.
When designing this artwork, I was debating in my head, the direction of the narrative. Should the narrative message in climate change read left to right, or right to left?

An addition factor is that in artistic images, people usually look at the image left to right (because of the habit reading English and European languages left to right.)
For this reason, I made the left most Hebrew letter the beginning of the climate change story. As you move towards the right, the letters are slightly bigger, because the impact of climate change is growing more rapidly.

 Hail: Climate Change (photos below this artwork in progress)

In the photo (above,) you can see examples of turbulent water fabricated from post consumer recycled tin cans. These were added as an additional layer to Hail- Climate Change (below.)

In the photos (above) Hail: Climate Change was still in progress though almost finished. Days from being done. Each day for four months, I made changes and fabricated new parts. In the photo below from January 2024, I am making deliberate and difficult decisions.

While trying to finish this artwork about climate change, I was hanging it my living room so I could “see” each change and addition. In the photo below, Alpa my studio assistant has been instrumental in helping me finish this artwork. I need two people to assemble the separate elements as it is so difficult to put together. In 2023, I received a grant from the MFJC Fellowship Program https://mfjc.org/ to provide financial assistance for a studio assistant and photography to complete “Hail: Climate Change” and “Wild Beasts: Terrorism.

The grant is to fund the completion and photography for "Hail: Climate Change" and "Wild Beasts: Terrorism".(still a work in progress.)

A grant from Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture has been helpful in covering the expenses to finish Hail: Climate Change.

In the photo (above) Alpa, my studio assistant is helping in the final intensive effort to finalize the appearance. There are still hours to go to hold the many elements with tiny screws and nuts. Each screw and nut takes from 10 minutes to an hour. I know that sounds like a long time, but the screws and nuts are very small (00-90) that it is incredibly difficult to attach these tiny nuts.

10 years of evolution and fabrication of Hail: Climate Change

Below is the plague Hail - Climate Change in progress in the studio. (This is test shot from 2017.) The use of post-consumer recycled tin cans focuses attention on how individual actions can improve our environment through recycling and; even more important - sustainable practices.  Our oceans are clogged with the detritus of our consumer society. The warming temperature of our oceans is impacting the entire world in countless ways.

The Idea Behind Hail: Climate Change

The biblical plague is hail. The Modern Plague is Climate Change. This is an obvious analogy since Climate Change is causing more severe weather disturbances including hail. This images below show this artwork in progress, early in the construction. The overarching objective is to make the lettering look like the sky is full of pollution, while the water submerges the lettering - symbolizing the rising water levels of our oceans.

Deciding how to create the letters of water. 

I wanted the lettering to be made from layers of blue tin cans. So I drew the  watery images card stock as pattern. The hard part is keep track of all these pieces. They were layered, floating above one another.  

Sure it seems easy. The is hard, really hard.

It seems easy to draw watery images on card stock, but it is never that simple. Doubt and torture are always the devil sitting on your shoulder.  

Behind the Scene Working in the Studio