by Erica Moser

The final assignment in Nathalie Miebach's 2003 Harvard astronomy class was to write a paper. Instead, and with the instructor's permission, Miebach created a sculpture from basket weaving.

She based the form on a diagram that took two variables used to determine the evolutionary stage of a star: luminosity and the temperature of the star. When she turned in the finished product, "that's sort of when the light bulb went off," Miebach said.

That "light bulb" has evolved into a unique artistic vision: weaving sculptures from weather data. Miebach's work was exhibited recently in the Miller Yezerski Gallery, and she is now finishing a wall piece intended for the lounge of Troy Boston, a luxury condominium under construction in the South End, where she has her studio.

Miebach's unusual art also has earned her an invitation in November as the keynote speaker at the annual Massachusetts Art Education Association conference, which has the theme of "visual articulations."

Miebach, 42, has long been fascinated by the human experience associated with weather, saying that it's about "much more than numbers." She begins each sculpture by focusing on a particular storm system and collecting data from weather stations, ocean buoys, satellite images and Internet sites.

Her next steps are to look at two or three variables - such as barometric pressure and wind - and begin building.

One example is a work-in-progress about Superstorm Sandy. A wheel at the top is built up of wave heights from Brooklyn, and black circles represent night, while white ones indicate daylight. There are dominoes on the left, each one labeled as a hurricane whose name was retired, with the number of dots corresponding to its hurricane category number.

In representing meteorological elements in her work, Miebach feels it's important to retain "some of the integrity of science."

"I can't fudge the data for anything aesthetic," she said. "It's not that there aren't a zillion aesthetic choices in this, but at the end of the day, it still has to tell the story that's on the graph."

Miebach works with reed, which has "a really interesting quality to it," she said. "It's a natural material, and if I exert too much strength on it, like this" - the reed she is holding snaps - "it'll break. So in other words, it's a material that I cannot fully control."

She considers her pieces "quite serious" and "really dark," because of the element of destruction from natural disasters.

But when visitors walk into her Harrison Avenue studio, reactions range from a prolonged 'wow' to 'holy smokes.' The studio is an array of sculptures made from multicolored reeds, beads and sticks. Some people see them as playful.

"I think it's absolutely enchanting," said Anita Baglaneas, owner of a catering company, who saw Miebach's work at South End Open Studios in September. "It's fun, and it's whimsical, and it makes me so happy to look at it."

Recently, Miebach began using the same metrics that go into her sculptures to help compose musical scores. The upper staff might show humidity and temperature, for example, while the lower staff represents barometric pressure. Earlier this month, she collaborated with composer Cory Kasprzyk for a musical performance at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Ohio.

Bringing Miebach and her work to BGSU was a way to illustrate "the idea of sculpture that relates to sound," gallery director Jacqueline Nathan said.

"I think it's a really amazing conflation of art and science," Nathan said. "But also, it's emotional and subjective . . . because of the different kinds of data sources that she uses."

Miebach is in the early stages of working with composer and Boston Conservatory professor Mischa Salkind-Pearl on a musical piece that the Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble will perform at the Cambridge Science Festival in April.

When Miebach has free time, she likes to play. With toys.

"When I have a day off, I play with Legos," she explained. "And that's perfect, because first of all, you have instructions!" She laughed. "You know -- whenever do you get a sculpture with instructions?"

This story was produced under a partnership with the Northeastern University School of Journalism.