Although there was no studio art department in the sixties when I was a student, Swarthmore equipped me to be the artist I am today. The unique intellectual environment planted seeds that later made me dare to combine my disparate interests into my art: science, philosophy, history and the arts.

Subsequent to leaving Swarthmore chance brought me some materials with fantastically unique properties -- polarizing filter and clear cellulose. Neither has color, but the clear cellophane that I cut and layered between polarizing filters, produced a whole spectrum of brilliant and subtle colors. Over the last 36 years, my work has been primarily an exploration in many different directions of this particular physical phenomenon. I coined the name PolageŠ art to describe what I think of as a completely new medium.

In some cases, my approach is to create interaction with the viewer who must take action to "discover" an image - to make the clear, colorless, invisible image visible. Additional actions often cause the image to change, such as turning a filter. Invariably, the experience elicits an exclamation -- "Oh Wow," or something more profane. In these cases, the end product, in my mind, is not the physical form of the art, but the wonder elicited from the spectator. Most of our lives we spend anaesthetized by the familiar . We take our miraculous technological and natural environment for granted, never experiencing feelings of awe and amazement.

One of the purposes of my interactive work is to remind people that our world is still fundamentally mysterious. Another is to share with the viewer a sense of the creative experience: the excitement of discovering something new and surprising.

In some works, I use Polage art to explore the invariable constant of change. A motor rotates a filter behind the image causing it to cyclically metamorphose. In these works I try to focus on the flow of experience rather than on one static instant.

I work at the intersection of Science, Art and the Spiritual. Many of my large works have been commissioned by science museums including the Boston Museum of Science, the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and La Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris. For thousands of years, the important stories of cultures were biblical tales depicted in religious institutions. Today science and technology museums are cathedrals of modern culture; they interpret the world in ways that relate to our contemporary lives.

All my work reflects my diverse interests. I am intrigued by what I can shape the material to do. I identify with the progress of technology: a new material or process is discovered, often accidentally, and then later a use is found for it. (This is the science part.) I am interested in finding the use for the material or technique I have discovered. I look at the effect it has on spectators and relate it to a symbolic expression of my understanding of the world. For example, the fact that there is always more to be revealed in a Polage than is available at first sight is symbolic of my belief that life unfolds its mysteries in response to our efforts. (This is the spiritual aspect). As an artist, I strive to find the historical relevance to my work in the context of the continuing dialog of art. Where does my work fit? What does it add?

I have augmented my studio art education at Indiana University, through university courses in Santiago Chile, and an MFA from Syracuse university. However, Swarthmore gave me the most important component, the intellectual courage to work in the gap between Science and Art. This has been my spiritual journey.

Austine Wood Comarow Swarthmore College Class of '63

Dawkins, Richard, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder, Houghton Mifflin. 1998, p.6: "There is an anesthetic of the familiar, a sedative of ordinariness, which dulls the senses and hides the wonders of existence." .