Plarn creatures on the bikeway

“Tardigrade,” by Michelle Lougee, in the exhibition “Persistence: A Community Response to Pervasive Plastic,’’ at the Minuteman Bikeway in Arlington, Mass., through next Oct. 31.

The exhibition is the culmination of Arts Arlington's first Artist-in-Residence Project, led by fiber artist and sculptor Lougee, who worked with Arlington Public Art Curator Cecily Miller and hundreds of craft people to create 37 sculptures.

Despite their amusing appearance, the exhibition’s very serious goal is to raise awareness about how single-use plastics hurt the environment and human health. The sculptures are made from plarn — a yarn made from plastic bags — and look like organisms found in water.

Artscope reports that Lougee began using plastic bags in her art about a decade ago to bring attention to the damage that plastic is causing the ocean’s eco-systems. For more information, visit artsarlington.org/programs/pathways-art-on-the-minuteman-bikeway/persistence.

'Organisms swirling around'

 
The show of Susan Heideman and Michelle Lougee runs through Sept. 7 at the Chandler Gallery at Maud Morgan Arts, Cambridge, Mass.

The gallery says:

"The focus of Michelle Lougee's and Susan Heideman's art is the dazzling interplay of organisms swirling around and within us. Inside/outside; plant/animal/mineral; micro/macro; we explore and confound the connections, contradictions, and borders among organic forms. From the high-speed acrobatic maneuvers of cell proteins to the swelling of larval cocoons, we aim to reveal the drama of these quotidian yet imagination-defying entities.''