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.

These are very simple knitted and then felted coasters on which I used needle felting to create the shapes of Silver Lake, Osgood Pond, Lake Colby, Catlin, and Raquette Lakes in the Adirondacks. The colors in the 4 corners of each are indicators of lake condition including trophic status, acidity, acid neutralizing capacity, and road salt influence (clockwise from top left), as described in AWI’s Adirondack Lake Assessment Program 2020 Update.