With her copper-plated jewelry, junior Lauren Doyle demonstrates perfectly how to merge art and science to create innovative and funky style.
Lauren recently won an Air Zoo Science Innovation Hall of Fame Student Art and Science Award from the Air Zoo in Portage for her work with copper electroforming, a process she does at a home. The award was for exemplifying the special harmony between arts and sciences. The competition required her to write an essay about the process.
Lauren, who is in a dual-enrollment class to earn Kendall College of Art and Design credits, uses a process of coating jewelry with metal by means of an electric current. She has made rings and a pendant. “I am still kind of messing around with it,” she said.
Lauren has taken art and design classes throughout school, is an advanced science student and plans to pursue a college major, possibly in biomathematics or biotechnology. Using chemistry in her art has been a cool experience, she said. She’s interested in appealing to high school students with her technique and plans to sell her pieces.
“It’s kind of cool to see more of an advanced technique like electroforming take place with a younger audience,” she said.
Art teacher Janine Campbell nominated Lauren for the award, which includes a $500 prize and yearlong Air Zoo membership. She said Lauren has a knack for design.
“In her work through construction and engineering she has a very logical approach to her work,” Campbell said. “And she’s so creative she’s able to really flourish with her work combining both that science aspect as well as creativity with her art.”
She said she was impressed to learn about Lauren’s electroforming hobby. “It’s not really anything I’ve seen students delve into. It’s something I’ve seen other artists do, but much later on.”
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