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Going with the flow
By Josie Klemaier
jklemaie@mscd.edu

Photo by Jason Small • jsmall4@mscd.edu Clinton T. Sander’s sculpture, titled “Barrels,” stands behind the Emmanuel Art Gallery as part of a UCD student exhibition showing through the end of April. The sculpture, which includes a solar-powered water fountain, is meant to symbolize clean water sustainability, Sander said.

Seventy-five percent of the earth’s surface is covered in water. Of that, only 0.007 percent is fresh and available for drinking, taking showers, flushing toilets, washing cars and dishes and playing in on a hot summer day.

Imagine that 0.007 percent becoming increasingly smaller due to rapid population growth and overuse. Imagine buying water the same way propane or gasoline is bought, storing it in 55-gallon barrels in the backyard.

From now until early April, 16 of those barrels sit stacked outside the windows of the Auraria pool. Artist and UCD senior Clinton T. Sander put them there to represent the average amount of water used in a single-family home in 12 days and signify America’s need for water conservation.

Sander was chosen from nearly 140 artists to create his proposed installation, titled “550 Flushes,” for the 2007 UCD student exhibition at the Emmanuel Gallery.

Sander is majoring in photography and has some photos in the exhibition as well.

“A lot of the art I do usually relates to current affairs or something going on in the world today,” he said, adding that he has worked for nonprofits geared toward environmental issues in the past.

“It’s to get people visually interested in it and think about how much water that is,” and to think about sustainability, Sander said about the project.

Standing 8 feet tall, 8 feet wide and 4 feet deep, the installation consists of 16 battleship-blue metal drums stacked on their sides. It’s stabilized by water in the bottom four and tied together by bright yellow straps. Attached front and center on the stack of barrels is a white porcelain fountain, through which a solar-powered pump circulates clear, fresh water.

Sander said that the project started simply and unintentionally when he found the old water fountain at a junkyard sale, then started collecting the 55-gallon barrels. The idea of freshwater conservation and sustainability came to him when he began realizing what the average American’s water consumption actually looks like.

Sander said he has gotten feedback from his classmates, some yielding unexpected reactions.

“The yellow straps definitely relate to yellow ribbons for some people. I didn’t think of that,” he said.

The location of the installation in front of the campus’s largest body of water, the Auraria pool, was also unintentional but “interesting” he said.

“I did not want to do a piece that’s kind of jabbing anything down people’s throat,” he said.

However, he did intend for the location and size of the sculpture to get people’s attention.

Sander said he wants to do something similar to this project someday in a different location, with possibly more barrels. His next big project is his thesis for his bachelor’s in fine arts, working with another photographer documenting the rebuilding in New Orleans. Three of his New Orleans photos are also on display in the Emmanuel Gallery as part of the exhibition, which ends April 3.