What's a wind-driven drawing machine? Ask this Dorchester artist.

Every morning at 6:30, Andrew Mowbray rides his bike from his home in Dorchester to the Boston Harborwalk, where his wind-drawing machine is on display through Sept. 27 between Old Harbor Park and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

This bike route is familiar to Mowbray, who, in addition to being an artist, is the director of 3-D arts at Wellesley College. As an “avid fisherman,” he often stops to take a few casts along it. And while there have always been benches around the area where the machine is installed, he’s noticed more people there than there used to be.

“It has become this weird placemaker,” one that’s “made the place more comfortable,” Mowbray told the Globe in a phone interview. “Maybe that’s the power of public art.”

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Each week, the machine produces a drawing dictated by that week’s wind patterns. It works like a weathervane, Mowbray said, where the main needle points in the direction of the wind. This needle is attached to a drum, inside of which is a drawing substrate wrapped around it with a fixed pen point. Depending on the direction of the wind, the pen, which Mowbray changes every morning, draws on different parts of the substrate.

The device “sits in between something scientific and something art-related,” Mowbray said. “Depending on who the person is, some people would think, ‘That’s a scientific instrument,’ and other people would be like, ‘Is that art?’”

The drawings will be displayed at the University of Massachusetts Boston’s University Hall Gallery’s “Nurture: Empathy for the Earth” exhibition, opening Sept. 3. It was first shown in 2010 at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln.

To Sam Toabe, gallery director of University Hall Gallery, who brought Mowbray’s work into the space, Mowbray’s machine seems to ask, “If the earth or nature were to express its own concerns about its own health, what would it be saying?”

Toabe’s exhibition aims to complement a conference at UMass Boston that will bring together artists, scientists, and public policy representatives to discuss climate change.

“Artists, I think, in contrast to some scientists or scientific papers, have a really humanist way of responding to these issues that can affect people emotionally, empathetically, and maybe get them more directly involved,” Toabe said.

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While Mowbray was initially hesitant to bring back an old project, he feels society’s relationship to weather has changed significantly since he first built the machine. “Ten years ago, I was aware of climate change,” he said, “but it’s on our doorstep now.” Even along his bike route, areas that used to flood annually flood monthly now, he said. He sees the device as a “beacon” that makes people aware of the wind and weather’s unpredictability.

“It’s a simple thing,” Mowbray said, “but to create a device that has that direct connection to nature makes me happy.”

NURTURE: Empathy for the Earth

At University Hall Gallery. Sept. 3 to Dec. 14; public reception Oct. 26, 5 to 7 p.m. umb.edu

ANDREW MOWBRAY’S WIND-DRIVEN DRAWING MACHINE

At Boston Harborwalk, between Old Harbor Park and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Through Sept. 27. umb.edu

Emily Wyrwa can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @emilywyrwa.