I am a Senior Research Scientist for the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute and this is one of several pieces made for a project called Wool and Water

Wool and Water is a data art project that blends fiber art with scientific data to create visual representations of changing water quality conditions in the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain Basin. In association with the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute has embarked on a collaborative fiber arts project supported by the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership to showcase the legacy of protecting clean water in the Lake Champlain Basin and beyond.

We received a grant from Northern New York Audubon to do a bird focused component of this project and I had to do a piece on sandhill crane, a species I am obsessed with since one started nesting in the marsh around the corner from here and visiting the fields at my house a few years ago. Relatively new to the Adirondacks, this species has been in NY state since 1999 but appears to be expanding its range. What started as a few cranes breeding in Tupper Lake marsh about a decade ago has broadened to several pairs known to be breeding in some of our largest marsh complexes. This shawl is a representation of bird wings from the Feather Wings Shawl pattern, done in colors that remind me of the cranes. To add the data I used red to accent it: left to right across the top of the shawl, the number of red bands corresponds to the number of locations in which cranes have been reported in the Adirondacks from 2013 - 2022. I compiled the data by looking at eBird records. There were just one or 2 reported locations in the early part of the last decade and last year records were submitted from at least 16 locations :)

I made only the middle panel of this. I didn’t have enough yarn to make more than that and it would have been very heavy but it’s a beautiful pattern.