Alexa Overeem’s Artwork Featured in Newest Issue of Geostrata

Senior Staff Engineer, Alexa Overeem recently had her artwork featured in this month’s issue of Geostrata.

The hand drawn artwork relates to an article on geotextiles written by her undergraduate advisor, and former Schnabel employee, Michael McGuire.

“I used to make engineering related art all the time for extra credit in Mike’s classes and I did an engineering/art independent study in undergrad with him as well”, said Alexa. “Mike reached out to me regarding his article and asked if I would create a cartoon to go along with it. Together we brainstormed the idea of the spiders weaving webs.”

The idea for the image is to show that if geotextiles are oriented in the right direction, with the thicker strands taking the most tension, the structure will be sound.

“In the image, you see the spider with its web oriented correctly was able to catch the flies, while the spider with the incorrect web is sad because his web is broken, and the fly has escaped!”

See more of Alexa’s artwork in future issues of Geostrata and to learn more about the Geo-Institute.