Irene Grote wasn’t here in the mid-1980s when the South Lawrence Trafficway boiled into an issue that, 20 years later, still splits the community.

She was born and raised in Germany and called the French-speaking region of Switzerland home for many years before moving to Lawrence in 1989.

She’ll be the first to tell you she doesn’t have a head for politics, but she has a passion for art.

So when Grote, an art collector and research scientist, finally discovered the Baker Wetlands in the photographs of local artist Casey Hudson — only to find out that a proposed highway could soon disturb the placid beauty of the ecosystem — she felt she had to do something.

A display of wetlands-inspired artwork opening this evening at the Lawrence Public Library was her humble answer.

“The wetlands to me are just an amazing place of meditation, contemplation and peace,” she said. “I’m not good at politics, but I love art and maybe that’s a way to honor the wetlands.”

Nearly 30 artists — from Lawrence, other parts of the country and the world — have contributed writings, music and two- and three-dimensional artwork for the exhibit, which will be on display through May 31. Sixty percent of the proceeds from sales will go to the Save the Wetlands organization.

‘Wild mercy in our hands’

Irene Grote, a Lawrence scientist and art enthusiast, has organized an exhibit in honor of the Baker Wetlands. The show opens today at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vt.

The artists range from a group of concerned students at Kennedy School to well-known regional artists like Lisa Grossman, who already has made efforts in her artwork to preserve the wetlands.

Twenty-five percent of the proceeds from the sale of a poster she created are going toward the preservation effort. The poster shows one of her paintings, a twilight panorama of the wetlands, with a quote from naturalist author Terry Tempest Williams across the bottom:

“The eyes of the future are looking back at us and praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wildness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.”

Poster sales have generated about $700 so far, Grossman said.

Composer and classical guitarist Dusan Bogdanovic, who plays with the classical guitar trio De Falla in San Francisco, wrote and recorded six American Indian studies that Grote will play at the opening reception. And world-renowned artist Catherine Bolle of Switzerland has sent work for the show as well.

Ongoing efforts

Grote hopes the artwork increases community awareness about the wetlands and encourages more people to visit them. She doesn’t expect to generate a fortune, but any amount helps, she said.

Community groups like the Wetlands Preservation Organization and Save the Wetlands are waiting anxiously for a decision from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which will accept or reject a proposal to complete the eastern leg of the trafficway on a 32nd Street alignment through the wetlands. If the route is approved, opponents likely will counter with litigation, said Bruce Plenk, an attorney for the Wetlands Preservation Organization.

This is the second art show in recent months to benefit the wetlands. In February, Fields Gallery donated about $350 to the cause after a sale of its artists’ work. Among the pieces were photographs of the wetlands by local artist Wally Emerson.

“It’s definitely showing there’s sort of continued support among the arts community for preserving spaces like the Haskell-Baker Wetlands, both intrinsically and because it’s a great place to produce art,” Plenk said. “None of those pictures would have been half as attractive if there had been semis in the background and guard rails.”