The streets of Chinatown were filled with roaring engines, honking cars, and the rhythmic steps of the city crowd. Scraps of plastic shopping bags, metal cans, and food packaging littered the sidewalk. Storeowners set up stands selling fruits, toys, and everything in between. It was amid the chaos of Philadelphia that I first met Mirabel Fernald ’27. She moved with the crowd as if she belonged to it. You could tell that with each purposeful step she became one with the city, the chaos, and the life.
Mirabel started sculpting in preschool, where she created elaborate structures out of cardboard. She was drawn to the art because it gave her the ability to work with her hands. In high school, she expanded her scope and started to tinker with different mediums. She experimented with ceramics, casting, and repurposing recycled goods for her structures. The biggest of these experiments was a willow tree crafted from collected soda cans that she cut up and wove into strips to create a life-like version of the tree.
Now at Swarthmore, Mirabel explores the discarded as it intersects with all aspects of life, especially environmental issues. Last spring, to draw attention to the excess waste generated in the food production cycle, she built a replica of a grain silo out of junked chip bags made of layers of polyester, metallized film, and polypropylene.
“I was super interested in [the project] because [the bags] cannot be recycled at all. There is a huge quantity of them in our landfills; I would collect [them] out of the trash. There was this girl in Sci who was eating out of a large pack of chips. I literally grabbed it out of her hand as she was still eating because the larger the surface area, the less I had to sew.”
The final silo sculpture stands tall over the onlookers, giving a physical presence to the discarded parts of everyday life. By depicting a silo — the start of many food systems — made of old chip bags — the final waste product — Mirabel wanted to create an art piece symbolic of the life cycle of modern food.
Temporality is a big motif in Mirabel’s art. She draws attention to the fleeting nature of things around us. Her earlier work includes plaster casts of rotting fruits frozen in time and arranged so they interlock. For Mirabel, sculpture is a method to capture and subvert consumption, decay, and rebirth. From silos made out of food packaging to plasters of fruit, her art highlights the unexpected: the discarded as a form of rebirth, and delicious fruit immortalized as it disintegrates. Outside the studio, she shares her passion for food systems by working as a Green Advisor (GA), tracing campus food waste all the way to compost.
“It’s so interesting, people’s relationships with their food — especially in the context of the U.S., where we’re so removed from our food system. My hot take at Swarthmore is that I think everybody should do a compost shift in the shed so you know where your trash waste is going. If you put something [in the compost] you should know that somebody is going to be taking it out of the compost.”
Mirabel’s artistic process begins with a focus on medium. Whether it be ceramics, casting, metal or recycled goods, the materials are the driving energy in her art. Once she decides on the matter of her sculpture, the research process begins. For Mirabel, the medium becomes one with the message of the structure, and her research helps her decide on what she wants to highlight in her art. The material focus is what she takes inspiration from to create her sculptures:
“I think about either a concept I really hope to be conveying in my piece or a material I really want to use. From there, I do a lot of reading and understanding about what I’m working with. I try to understand how it makes me think in different ways.”
Mirabel uses her mediums to bridge art with her academic interests. Normally, after some meticulous research, she narrows down an issue area such as insufficient recycling or food access and production. Each and every concept is built up in her mind before she even lays her hands on her medium. This assures that each and every part of her art is intentionally crafted.
“I overthink about whatever I’m doing research around, but I love it. I let that thinking drive what I’m making. It’s less ‘I’m going to make this!’ and more ‘but why?’ I spent a whole week reading about the glass industry in the U.S., different uses of glass, the history of stained glass, and all [recycling] in the U.S.. I like to be educated on whatever I could be working on.”
Mirabel’s process of thinking, rethinking, and researching highlights the often invisible labor that goes into making thoughtful artwork. The process of creating is a journey, and each hour spent on crafting thought-provoking work is a step. With evolving technology, especially AI, the end product has become more accessible, but the methods of refining the craft have gone underappreciated. Mirabel urges people to think deeper about how the art is created rather than just observing the finished artwork.
“The interesting thing about making art is that it’s a way of thinking about the world differently. Everybody thinks that they can write a novel the way that everybody thinks that you can be an artist. But, it takes years and years of practice, and it’s the same for art making. You have to sit with something for a really long time and think about it. Painters, they repaint something, or undo something and there is no immediate, correct answer. ”
For Mirabel, art is a way to connect with wider communities and move beyond the boundaries of physical spaces. When she sculpts, she imagines her art unbound by museum walls and reaching towards something larger. She isn’t interested in making art that is easily digestible or aesthetically pleasing, but rather art that draws attention to what is overlooked.
“There is this concept of the white box, where things exist only in intellectual spaces or the museum. It’s so important to think about … [art] and the people it’s affecting, as not existing only in the ivory tower.”
Mirabel also wanted to shout out Assistant Professor of Art Jody Joyner, Senior Maker Space & Wood Shop Manager Josh Jordan, and Engineering Shop Supervisor and Machinist J. Johnson, who have helped her in her sculpting journey.
