Seed
This piece was commissioned for the refurbishment of Santa Rosa Plaza in downtown Santa Rosa, Ca. The concrete was all being replaced giving me a fresh blank canvas to work on. My work also had to complement an existing piece of well-loved sculpture in the center of the plaza. "Agraria" by Larry Kirkland is a huge beautifully carved white marble hand posed as if casting seeds. Surrounding it, embedded in brick paving are squares engraved with proverbs, quotes, and other "seeds" of wisdom. I have heard, but not been able to definitively confirm, that the sculpture represents Luther Burbank's hand. Living and working in Santa Rosa, Burbank was a scientist, educator, and humanitarian, and most notably the father of late 19th and 20th century Californian agriculture, in particular the hybridization of plants.
My work takes the existing visual of the squares set at 45 degrees but develops it into a free-form sprawling design branching out over about 2 to 3,000 sqft of concrete. I looked at microscopic images of plant cells and pollen and developed simple images from these that were then water-jet cut into brass plates that I embedded into the slab. The linear elements and squares have outlines cut into the concrete and are stained with color and sealed. The overall image suggests plants, veins, growth, and connections.
The piece is impossible to photograph in it's entirety as it is comprised of four sections, three of which surround the main plaza in front of Santa Rosa Plaza Mall on B Street at Fourth Street, and one section is at the A Street mall entrance, but these photos give an idea of the nature of the piece. You can read some thoughts about the process of making the piece on the blog here.
A project of the City of Santa Rosa's Art In Public Places program, commissioned by Simon Property Group, 2012.
My work takes the existing visual of the squares set at 45 degrees but develops it into a free-form sprawling design branching out over about 2 to 3,000 sqft of concrete. I looked at microscopic images of plant cells and pollen and developed simple images from these that were then water-jet cut into brass plates that I embedded into the slab. The linear elements and squares have outlines cut into the concrete and are stained with color and sealed. The overall image suggests plants, veins, growth, and connections.
The piece is impossible to photograph in it's entirety as it is comprised of four sections, three of which surround the main plaza in front of Santa Rosa Plaza Mall on B Street at Fourth Street, and one section is at the A Street mall entrance, but these photos give an idea of the nature of the piece. You can read some thoughts about the process of making the piece on the blog here.
A project of the City of Santa Rosa's Art In Public Places program, commissioned by Simon Property Group, 2012.
