Cheryl Marie Bowers (née Olsen, September 11, 1938 – January 15, 2017), known as Ciel Bergman, was an American painter of

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

origin. Her work, considered

post-modern Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experi ...

, has a focus on the environment as well as feminine consciousness.

Early career

Bergman, who was known Cheryl Bowers at the time, had originally trained to be a psychiatric nurse. In the 1960s, she began private study with portrait painters Peter Blos and Vincent Perez, while working as a

Registered nurse A registered nurse (RN) is a healthcare professional who has graduated or successfully passed a nursing program from a recognized nursing school and met the requirements outlined by a country, state, province or similar government-authorized ...

Obstetrics Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a su ...

. She was awarded first place in painting at The Jack London Invitational, Oakland and then returned to school. In 1973, she earned an MFA in Painting with Honours at the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

under Fred Martin, while attending Graduate Seminars at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

with Robert Hudson and

Peter Plagens Peter Plagens (born 1941) is an American artist, art critic, and novelist based in New York City.Online Archive of CaliforniaPeter Plagens papers, 1938-2014 Retrieved January 18, 2018.Smith, Roberta''The New York Times'', February 7, 2018. Retrie ...

Work

Bergman's work consists primarily of paintings, drawings, prints, photography, constructions and prose using the metaphors of the water, the rose and rose petals. Her paintings in the mid-1980s depicted aspects of goddess using symbols from the

collective unconscious In psychology, the collective unconsciousness () is a term coined by Carl Jung, which is the belief that the unconscious mind comprises the instincts of Jungian archetypes—innate symbols understood from birth in all humans. Jung considered th ...

. In 1987, Bergman addressed the growing urgency of

plastic recycling Plastic recycling is the processing of plastic waste into other products. Recycling can reduce dependence on landfills, conserve resources and protect the environment from plastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling rates lag beh ...

in the ''Sea of Clouds What Can I Do'', presented at Santa Barbara Contemporary Art Forum. An immersive installation filled the entire gallery space with seven dumpsters full of

non-biodegradable Biodegradable waste includes any organic matter in waste which can be broken down into carbon dioxide, water, methane, compost, humus, and simple organic molecules by micro-organisms and other living things by composting, aerobic digestion, ana ...

waste plastic garbage gathered from four miles of Santa Barbara's

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

coastline over the course of three or four months. The installation included painted wall murals, sound, a video written and shot by the artist, photography, a meditation circle, writing, and a prayer sticks altar with interactive participation of visitors to the exhibition. The installation resembled a post-nuclear ash site: floors were littered with sprawling piles of plastic which hung from the ceiling, sprinkled with flour. After the exhibition closed, six dumpsters were needed to haul away the refuse.

Plasphalt

Realizing that plastic, like

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

, is a

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...

product, Bergman theorized that plastic could be

recycled Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the propert ...

and used to build highways. She brought the idea to her former partner Gary Fishback, who patented it under the Plasphalt™. Plasphalt consists of recycled plastic that is made into a heat absorbing material and is added to asphalt to displace petroleum and hydrocarbon pollutants. While at the time 10% more expensive to use than traditional asphalt, Plasphalt lasts 25% longer. In 2002, Plasphalt was used to reinforce a 2-mile stretch of

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

I-25 Interstate 25 (I-25), also known as the Pan-American Freeway, is a major Interstate Highway in the western United States. It is primarily a north–south highway, serving as the main route through New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. I-25 st ...

. Fishback and Erik Bowers (Bergman's son) of TEWA Technology developed the project and materials, diverting 27% of all waste from

landfill A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...

to the highway. At the time TEWA's best local suppliers were

Philips Semiconductors NXP Semiconductors N.V. is a Dutch semiconductor manufacturing and design company with headquarters in Eindhoven, Netherlands. It is the third largest European semiconductor company by market capitalization as of 2024. The company employs approx ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...

, and

Sandia National Laboratories Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), also known as Sandia, is one of three research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Headquartered in Kirtland Air Force B ...

. Unfortunately, because of lack of support from local government, the company went bankrupt. However, Plasphalt is now used to build roads in China and India. The benefits of using plastic in asphalt according to Michael Valenti, author of ''Plastic Plus Asphalt equals "Plasphalt"'', is that the impermeability of the plastic improved the water proofing of the Plasphalt, making it more resistant to rain, snow, or ice. A benefit of the Plasphalt process is that it works well with mixed plastics, such as

high density polyethylene High-density polyethylene (HDPE) or polyethylene high-density (PEHD) is a thermoplastic polymer produced from the monomer ethylene. It is sometimes called "alkathene" or " polythene" when used for HDPE pipes. With a high strength-to-density ratio ...

and

polytetrafluorethylene Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene, and has numerous applications because it is chemically inert. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon by Chemours, a spin-off from DuP ...

. It also does not require the laborious sorting of different types of plastics, as do other recycling techniques. Laying a single mile of road would require 100 to 200 tons of Plasphalt according to Dennis Egan, a mechanical engineer with Plasphalt Project Ltd.

Academic appointments

After lecturing at the University of California, Berkeley from 1973 to 1975, and teaching at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...

from 1975 to 1976, Bergman became a

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

, teaching there from 1976 to 1994. While at UCSB, she sat on the Academic Senate's

affirmative action Affirmative action (also sometimes called reservations, alternative access, positive discrimination or positive action in various countries' laws and policies) refers to a set of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking ...

committee, teaching and hiring women.

Personal life

Bergman had two children from her marriage to Lynn Franklyn Bowers. In 1988, the artist made what she felt was a necessary spiritual decision to legally change her name on her 50th birthday, from Cheryl Marie Bowers to Ciel Bergman, to honor her Swedish maternal grandmother, Emma Josephine Bergman. In ''Blood, Milk, Water,'' scholar Wendy Steiner said, "Her name itself represents that sort of shift - from Cheryl Bowers to Ciel Bergman - becoming a landscape of 'sky' and' mountain' that is a typical background in her paintings."

Awards

As Cheryl Bowers, Bergman was the recipient of a Society for the Encouragement of the Creative Arts SECA Art Award in painting, from the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

and was included in the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

of American Art in 1975 as Cheryl Bowers. In 1980, as Cheryl Bowers, she was honored with the

Louis Comfort Tiffany Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is associated with the art nouveauLander, David"The Buyable ...

Award. Under her name of Ciel Bergman, she was awarded a residency at The Djerassi Foundation in 2009 and the Ucross Art Foundation in 2014.

Collections

Bergman's work is included in numerous museum and corporate collections, including the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

;

Oakland Museum of California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

Oakland, CA Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

; the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

;

Atlantic Richfield Arco may refer to: Places * Arco, Trentino, a town in Trentino, Italy * Arco, Idaho, in the United States * Arco, Minnesota, a city in the United States * ARCO Arena in Sacramento, California, home of the Sacramento Kings Companies * ARCO (b ...

;

Saks Fifth Avenue Saks Fifth Avenue (Colloquialism, colloquially Saks) is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain founded in 1867 by Andrew Saks. The first store opened in the F Street and 7th Street shopping districts, F Street shopping distric ...

; The Capitol Group;

Banco di Roma Banco di Roma was an Italian bank based in Rome, established on 9 March 1880. In the early 20th century, it was one of Italy's four dominant universal banks, together with Banca Commerciale Italiana, Credito Italiano, and Società Bancaria Ita ...

; and

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (Bank of America) (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in ...

, as well private collection in the United States, Europe and Asia. *Achenbach Foundation, Palace Legion of Honor,

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, CA *Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Art,

Racine, Wisconsin Racine ( ) is a city in Racine County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River (Wisconsin), Root River, south of Milwaukee and north of Chicago. It is the List ...

Contemporary Arts Society The Contemporary Arts Society was founded by John Lyman in 1939 to promote modern art in Montreal, at a time when Canada was dominated by academic art. Lyman was the Society's first president. The additional officers were vice-president Paul-Émil ...

(

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, UK *

, NY *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

(

Eye Magazine ''Eye'' magazine is a quarterly print magazine on graphic design and visual culture. History First published in London in 1990, ''Eye'' was founded by Rick Poynor, a prolific writer on graphic design and visual communication. Poynor edited t ...

), New York City, NY *

(prints) *

Nevada Museum of Art The Nevada Museum of Art, is an art museum in Reno, Nevada. Located at 160 West Liberty Street in Reno, it is the only American Alliance of Museums (AAM) accredited art museum in the state of Nevada. The museum has chosen a thematic approach, pl ...

, Archives, ART+ECO,

Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...

, NV (Plasphalt) *

New Mexico Museum of Art The New Mexico Museum of Art is an art museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe governed by the state of New Mexico, United States. It is one of four state-run museums in Santa Fe that are part of the Museum of New Mexico. It is located one bloc ...

, Santa Fe, NM * Oakland Museum of California Art,

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

, CA *

Orange County Museum of Art The Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located on the campus of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California. The museum's collection comprises more than 4,500 objects, with a concentration ...

Anaheim Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, United States, part of the Greater Los Angeles area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the tenth-most ...

, CA *Richard L. Nelson Fine Art Collection,

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

Davis Davis may refer to: Places Antarctica * Mount Davis (Antarctica) * Davis Island (Palmer Archipelago) * Davis Station, an Australian base and research outpost in the Vestfold Hills * Davis Valley, Queen Elizabeth Land Canada * Davis, Sa ...

, CA * Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College,

Pomona, California Pomona ( ) is a city in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. Pomona is located in the Pomona Valley, between the Inland Empire and the San Gabriel Valley. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city's population was ...

*Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry,

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, FL * San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art,

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

, CA *

Santa Barbara Museum of Art The Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) is an art museum located in downtown Santa Barbara, California. Founded in 1941, it is home to both permanent and special collections, the former of which includes Asian art, Asian, Visual arts of the United ...

, Santa Barbara, CA *University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, CA *University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA *

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

, Bellingham, WA *

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

(Eye Magazine), New York City, NY

References

External links

www.cielbergman.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergman, Ciel 1938 births 2017 deaths American women artists Artists from Berkeley, California University of California, Berkeley alumni 21st-century American women