Raintree

More images from a busy summer of public art. Raintree is located in the stormwater runoff pond at the newly redesigned Cromwell Park in Shoreline. A collaboration between Public Works and the Parks and Recreation Department, this park was transformed from a flat grass lot to an undulating, functional and more naturalized gathering place.

Many logs were unearthed from the boggy ground during regrading, some of which remain exposed as landscaping features. This work draws influence from them, the purpose of the site, and the flow that occurs between the exchange of water there.

Dew Beads

Dew Beads, dedicated July 2010 in Shoreline's Hamlin Park.

Ivy Art at Blakely Harbor Park

Yesterday was the culmination of months of work done in Blakely Harbor Park by 7th and 8th grade students from Odyssey Middle School. They made numerous trips to the site to pull English Ivy from a site at the water's edge, test water quality and learn about the site's history.

Their teacher, Elizabeth Vroom, applied for funding from the Bainbridge Schools Foundation, the BIAHC Arts Consortium, and the Wendy Jackson Hall Memorial Mentorship Fund to add an art component to their investigations, which allowed me to come and work with her class. Over the course of three visits, students learned about site-specific and ephemeral environmental installation artwork, conceptualized their sculptural work for the site, articulated these visions in words, and created drawings and origami doves for the actual piece.

The day of building and installing was remarkable: in the rain, mud and wind, everyone worked with intention. Teams of 3 and 4 students fabricated their portion of an ivy rope, joined the parts, and suspended the results. The meandering ivy cable circumscribed the site that had been cleared of the non-native invasive, offering a surprise to passersby (including numerous classes from IslandWood) or conscientious visitors to the park. The work will be up until Sunday morning at 10am, June 6.

Wonderful photos by Larry Steagall of the Kitsap Sun can be seen in conjunction with the article by Tristan Baurick. Video footage will be available shortly at BITV.

Earth Day at Earthworks

We celebrated Earth Day on April 22 at the Herber Bayer Earthworks at Mill Creek Canyon Park. This magical event was coordinated by Cheryl dos Remedios, and featuring Paul Rucker, Mandy Greer, and Aiko Kinoshita's acornDance troupe. I had great help from Sydney Brown, Taylor Norton and Karina Nyquist, students of mine from Cornish College of the Arts. The leaf boat luminaria on the ring pond were a hit.

The City of Kent produced a lovely video commemorating this event -- see it here.

How to Make a Park: Redmond's Northeast Neighborhood

Northeast Neighborhood Park sits on the farthest northern edge of incorporated Redmond. A wooded haven in the midst of subdivisions, this park was the subject of a Master Plan conducted by Nakano Associates and a team including wetland biologist Cathie Connolly of ESA Adolfson and me, working as consulting artist and educator.

Watching this project evolve from concept to a work party on July 18, 2009 during which community members built the beginning of their park was awe-inspiring. The amount of support given by the City Council and the Redmond Parks and Recreation Department proves that positive, directed energy regenerates itself.

Heaven & Earth

A glimpse of the work in Piper's Orchard at Carkeek Park, on display until August 10. For more information, see the Heaven & Earth website.

Lace Leaf Bicycle Racks

Lace Leaf Bike Racks are sprouting on the sidewalks of downtown Kent, WA, this spring! Special consideration was given to the function of the racks as well as their style; designed for parking two bicycles, these racks reflect the city's renewed emphasis on health, growth and the natural environment.

Special thanks go to the Kent Downtown Partnership, the Kent Arts Commission, the Kent Planning and Public Works Departments, the panelists on the selection committee, Cheryl dos Remedios, and Dero.

New Bicycle Racks

Here's a preview of the new sculptural bike parking for the Kent Downtown Partnership. Shown is the fabricated frame in its powdercoated state: the proposal drawing depicts the rack with hand painted detail and resin insets, to be completed by the artist. The Lace Leaf Bicycle Racks will be installed in early 2009.

Inside + Outside: Catch + Release installed

in the Flow

I am honored to be included in a two-person show with David Eisenhour at Port Angeles Fine Arts Center.

Entitled Two in the Flow, the show features a common thread of organic forms in a variety of materials, and is beautifully hung throughout the gallery. The exhibit is on display July 13 - October 5, 2008.

Work in Progress

The working model of the sculpture, held in place by David Strauss and ably assisted by Chris Armes, both of SHKS Architects. Constructed of a true madrona branch and red painted paper, the piece serves as an indicator of scale and overall appearance for the indoor sculpture.

Context and Initial Thoughts

From top to bottom:
Arbutus menziesii illustration, courtesy of Southwest School of Botanical Medicine's fabulous resource.
Bead/Flow, installation by the artist at Port Angeles Fine Art Center, Washington.
Pomegranate detail of bronze frame sculpture at Aereoporto Galileo Galilei, Pisa, Italy.
Ilex pollen grain illustration by the artist.
Stair and railing detail of Magnolia library 34th street entrance.

Beginning

Children waiting for the opening of the original Magnolia Bluff Station of the Seattle Public Library. The window, the anticipation, the treasures inside.

Catch + Release

The Magnolia Public Library opened this weekend, and featured Catch + Release, a new pair of sculptures that inhabit spaces in and out of the newly constructed meeting room addition by SHKS Architects.

Designed to connect interior and exterior spaces by relating to this lovely south-facing window of the library, the works refer both to the madrona tree around which the original library and landscape architecture was conceived and to the function of the library as disseminator and patrons as collectors of information.

The work is made of steel and hand-cast polyurethane resin.

Branch with Berries

Magnolia Library Artwork

Catch + Release is a pair of site-specific sculptures created for the Magnolia Library: a branch suspended from the ceiling of the meeting room above the south window and a basket outside the south window. The pieces connect interior to exterior, recall the landscape history of the Magnolia Library site and allude to the function of the library and the patrons who use it.

The interior branch is woven of blackened annealed steel wire using a basket technique, and studded with large, handmade red and orange polyurethane resin beads. This structure hangs from the ceiling at an angle that is visible from the main part of the library, gesturing toward the south window. This window forms a connection to the exterior basket, which is located just outside. Constructed of stainless steel, additional cast resin beads are suspended on the basket’s vertical ribs. Light and shadow also link the two sculptures: the branch is lit from a high angle toward the south wall, broadcasting shadowy lines from the wire and ghostly color from the resin, while the basket is lit from below, illuminating the “berries” and reflecting off the basket in the dark.

The madrona tree around which the original building and landscape architecture was designed provides the conceptual framework for Catch + Release. The suspended branch and its resin beads mimic the mature fruiting arbutus, and invite nature inside the building; outside, the basket captures additional berries. The title Catch + Release refers to these actions of fruiting and gathering, paired activities of nature and humans that work as a metaphor for the relationship between library as information provider and patrons as collectors and disseminators.

Leafboat Benches at Hiawatha Artists Lofts

These resin and steel benches can be seen at the Hiawatha Artists' Lofts on Charles Street, just a block to the east of Rainier Avenue South. The seats suggest leaf boats made by children to float down streams, relating to the bioswale/raingarden they flank. The leaves are both archetypical shapes and specific to the site: Scarlet Oak, Vine Maple and Serviceberry. This project was sponsored jointly by Artspace and a Seattle Department of Neighborhoods Grant.

Pollen

Redmond Elementary School, Redmond, WA

Tools for Creativity

Quarter Century Edition of The Paradise of Childhood A Practical Guide to Kindergartners By Edward Wiebé, Henry Wolcott Blake

Amazing writing, turn of the century, on early childhood learning and creativity, with illustrations. This work is based on Freidrich Froebel's vision for education of young children, in which " The kindergarten was essentially tri-partite:

• toys for sedentary creative play (these Froebel called gifts and occupations)
• games and dances for healthy activity
• observing and nurturing plants in a garden for stimulating awareness of the natural world

It was a search for metaphysical unity, in which the potential growth to wholeness of the individual child within the natural world would fulfill an harmonious ideal... " Peter Weston in The Froebel Educational Institute: the Origins and History of the College, found reprinted at http://www.froebelweb.org/.

See a beautiful collection of the Twenty Gifts promoted by Froebel at The Institute for Figuring and think about how those transcend their use for children into sculptural forms that stand on their own.