On the mall leading to Lutgert Hall, five corten and stainless steel spires rise majestically from a bed of black river rock in ascending heights from 7 to 15 feet. Each ends in an LED beacon that sends shafts of light throughout the mall at night just as FGCU graduates will carry the illumination they receive at the university into the world beyond. The spires are called Transition and their sculptor is internationally-renowned artist Robert Roesch.

Roesch reveals that Transition’s spires “represent the promise of great things ahead.” Metaphorically, the change in metal from the 3-foot bases of corten steel to tops of reflective stainless steel symbolizes the change that will take place within each student as a result of the educational process. The sculpture dovetails with the strong verticality of the business school and the surrounding architecture inside the mall. The spires, in fact, echo the grid pattern repeated throughout the mall.

The power source for the LED beacons also coincides with FGCU’s commitment to energy conservation and green initiatives. “I favor solar power,” says Roesch. “In fact, 90 percent of my studio is powered by solar panels; everything except the hand tools I use. But when I came to FGCU’s campus to visit the site where Transition would go, I noticed an entire field of solar panels and was told that the university derives 20 percent of its electricity from solar power. So it would have been redundant to have the beacons have their own solar power sources. Instead, I tied them into FGCU’s power grid, but by making them LED, they cost a mere $2 per year each to operate, so they are both cost and energy efficient.”

Artists must often make budgetary concessions when designing a site-specific public art piece, and Roesch was no exception when it came to Transition. “I would have preferred to have ten spires that ranged in height from 10 to 25 feet instead of five that go from 7 to 15 feet. That would have allowed the tops of the spires to create a smoother, more aesthetic curve and let the beacons more closely resemble stars.”  Taller spires would have also contributed to a stronger sense of movement, “a feel of taking off.”

Roesch’s favorite venue in which to erect public artworks is on university campuses. “Universities is where you find young people who are concerned about saving our planet and making contributions to society. As a seasoned artist, I want to have some play in that. So I love to build in those environments.”

Since its completion, students, faculty and visitors to FGCU’s campus alike have luxuriated in the subliminal metaphorical and allegorical stories Transition tells. This is as the artist intends, a feature recognized by art critic Burton Wasserman in his earlier [February 2010] article in Icon Magazine (pg 11). Roesch is “a seasoned master of a style best described as the abstract sublime…., Wasserman writes. “To feel the vitality of his awesome artistic geometry is to identify with mighty presences at work in the universe at large. Joined together with a touch of virtuosity, they open existential realms of perception, amplifying rare metaphysical states of dynamic expansion. They are realities able to plumb the core of one’s innermost sense of contact to the past, the present and the future. In their own terms, they embody a profound sense of poetry. ”

About Robert Roesch

Born in New York State, Robert Roesch lives today in Pennsylvania and works in a studio in the New Jersey Pinelands. He holds a B.F.A. from the School of Fine Arts of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and a B.A. from the School of Art and Design of the State University of New York in Farmingdale. A member of the Philadelphia Art and Architecture Commission and Chair of Sculpture at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Roesch has received 12 grants, including 2 Fulbright Specialist Awards to lecture and exhibit throughout Japan in 2006-2007 and to represent the USA in the Baku Biennial (2009).

Roesch’s work can be found in museum collections worldwide. He has completed 20 major public art projects in the United States alone. His most ambitious U.S. project is Wind Spirit Gateway, which consists of ten 16-foot lighted stainless steel spires with two 20-f00t stepped limestone berms, each topped by two 18-foot stainless steel shapes. Together, they serve as the gateway to the city of Wichita, Kansas. “It’s the first thing visitors see as they enter the city,” Roesch notes with pride of the project, which took one year to complete. “To walk away from a site where you’ve formed the earth and left icons behind is just an amazing thing, especially when you’ve given it meaning.”

Roesch’s largest monumental sculpture in this hemisphere is Momentum, a massive 280-foot-long by 46-foot-high sculpture that sits at the entrance to Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. “It’s my happiest piece because it gave me the chance to completely stretch out,” says Roesch of the project, which is located across the street from the Gulf of Mexico. “The fan that’s located on one end is now the University’s logo,” adds Roesch with satisfaction, who finds large-scale works magical. “I love, love, love building large works. There is a certain amount of joy I get out of finding my sculpture on Google Earth.”

Roesch found Takeflight in Norwich, Connecticut to be a very satisfying project because he was able to get involved with the architect during the planning stages of construction. As a result, the building was actually designed to showcase the 2009 sculpture, which flows onto the building and appears to echo its title.

Roesch and his wife, artist Suzanne Horvitz, collaborated in 2008 on a mammoth public art installation at the Academy of Fine Art in Hangzhou, China’s West Lake region. Called Transduction, it features a series of pyramids above and below a table or plane made of gold and Corten steel. The name signifies that moment in time “when the atmosphere transfers from one point to another,” for example air to water, love to hate, over world to underworld. Roesch traces the concept to his extensive experiences in sailing. “When boat, sailor, water and wind are in harmony, it creates a perfect state of mind.” Transduction, a term supplied by one of Robert’s sons, who is a neuro-scientist.

Transduction is solar driven. “It lights itself up at night,” Roesch reports, “and re-charges itself during the day.” Solar power and sustainability are topics that have caught the sculptor’s fancy, and his recent monumental work in Mexico (which consists of three pyramids 35 feet high) is also solar driven.

Roesch completed a second work in China in 2010. Called Rainwall, it is located in Jiande.

Roesch and his wife and fellow artist, Suzanne Horvitz, have also served as Cultural Advisors to the U.S. embassies in Azerbaijan, Egypt, Syria, Argentina, Ecuador and Myanmar. Roesch was an invited artist in the 2007 and 2009 Biennials in Egypt. Roesch teaches construction techniques, sculpture composition, sculpture seminars, sculpture projects and digital imaging in the Certificate/BFA program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He also teaches courses in the Continuing Education program.

A Note about Corten

Corten is the trade name given to a group of steel alloys developed to eliminate the need for painting. When exposed to the elements for several years, corten forms a protective layer that has a stable, rust-like appearance  but which actually resists further corrosion. For that reason, corten (sometimes called weathering steel) is popularly used in exterior building facades and outdoor sculptures such as the large Chicago Picasso Sculpture.

It is important to note that weathering steel is not rustproof in itself. If water is allowed to accumulate in pockets on or around it, corten will experience continued corrosion. For that reason, Transition’s five spires are set several inches above ground level. Corten’s normal weathering can also lead to rust stains on nearby surfaces, particularly sidewalks and decorative curbing. This factor no doubt explains in part why Transition has been sited in a bed of river rock, which ensures that dew and rainwater drains into the soil beneath the stone.

Weathering steel is also sensitive to environments that have a lot of salt in the air. In such places, the protective patina can fail to stabilize, leading to catastrophic corrosion. That is what happened to the former Omni Coliseum built in 1972 in Atlanta, which never stopped rusting and had to be demolished just 25 years after construction when large holes appeared in the structure.

Nevertheless, Roesch himself is less worried about the longevity of the corten than the stainless steel he used in Transition. “The stainless steel is one step down from a polished surface,” the sculptor notes. “I didn’t want the tops of the spires to be too bright or blinding in south Florida’s intense sunlight, but my fabricator in Texas and I had to be careful not to destroy the passivity of the polymers we used.” He was first introduced to those polymers by a NASA aerospace scientist while he was designing Momentum, the massive 280-foot-long by 46-foot-high sculpture that sits at the entrance to Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi (see above). “It’s the same composition I used for the Florida Atlantic University piece [Alchemy, mentioned below]. The polished-back stainless steel should last forever,” Roesch predicts. “But I still worry about that late at night because stainless steel contains iron after all or it would be too brittle to use.”

Were the polymer to fail over time, the stainless steel could yellow.

Fast Facts.

• Transition was installed on January 5, 2012.
• The cost of the sculpture was $71,750.
• The sculpture was purchased with funds provided by the Florida Art in State Buildings Program (Fla. Stat. s. 255.043), which mandates that 0.5% of the cost of constructing academic buildings paid for with Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) funds be spent on public art.
• The art purchased for each building is determined by a committee convened for that purpose and is generally comprised of a representative of FGCU’s president, the building’s architect, a representative of the building faculty and two other members of the art community in the Fort Myers area. The committee issues a “Call to Artists,” reviews the submissions received and selects the artist with whom they desire to work.
• Roesch became interested in steel working on tugboats in East Long Island, New York.
• In addition to wife Suzanne and his two boys, Roesch has two loves: sailing and west coast jazz, especially from the ’50s and ’60s. “Without sailing and jazz, there’d be no Roesch art,” the sculptor has avowed.
• His favorites are jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane and trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Miles Davis. Roesch met Davis at a gallery show, and the two ultimately became friends. “He collected me pretty heavily,” Roesch adds with pride.
• Roesch credits as his greatest teacher and motivator an incident that happened to him at sea in 1979. “A friend invited me to crew with him on a boat he was bringing from Martha’s Vineyard to Long Island for a defense attorney in Manhattan. A fog came in and we were hit by an Exxon barge and tug boat. The captain was killed and for two and a half hours, my friend and I were left to our own devices, not sure we’d survive. That experience has given impetus to every drawing I’ve made since then.”
• Transition is not Roesch’s first sculpture under the Florida Art in State Buildings program. In 2002, he completed a work called Alchemy, which consists of three 16-foot corten and stainless steel spires that sit outside the entrance to the Senator James A. Scott Education and Science Center at Florida Atlantic University.
• “Great art tells a story,” Roesch observes. “For example, around the time Andy [Warhol] did his Campbell soup cans, my mother, who was an avid country cook, stopped making meals from scratch and went almost exclusively to using processed foods.” Roesch sees Warhol’s Campbell’s soup series as symbolic of this fundamental societal change and hopes his public artworks similarly capture significant historical world events. “If you don’t have art, you don’t have a true visual history of how people live.”

Related Articles and Links.

• Transition is registered on cultureNOW.org, on online public art database that encompasses more than 11,000 sites, 21,000 images, and more than 1,050 podcasts by artists, architects, historians and curators.
• ‘Transition 2012′ first FGCU artwork added to cultureNOW database (09-17-13)

Inching 44 feet up the south wall of Academic Building #7 at Florida Gulf Coast University are nine pink-tinged pentagon wall sconces that emulate a molecular chain. Each consists of transparent acrylic panels treated with a dichroic coating that produces subtle and ever-changing puddles of color on the building’s facade that fade or grow in size and intensity as the sun carves its arc across the southwest Florida sky. The sculpture is called Depend du Soleil and it is a reflection of the creative elan of West Palm Beach sculptor Mark Fuller.

The 30 x 30 x 27 inch prismatic sconces (right) are no less colorful after dusk. Completely self-energizing, the sconces’ LED lights come alive at night compliments of a technologically-sophisticated solar ovonic panel and battery that is mounted on top of the canopy overhanging the south entrance to AB#7. The luminaries are attached to the wall via an aluminum baseplate and stainless steel fasteners, and are connected to each other and the solar panel and battery pack by means of 12-volt conduit ensconced in mirror-polished stainless steel tubing.

Depend du Soleil reflects the academic pursuits that take place inside Academic Building #7, namely chemistry and math. The installation is also wholly compatible with AB #7′s high standard of environmental sustainability. Completed on May 31, 2011, Depend du Soleil is part of the Florida Art in Public Buildings program, an initiative started in 1979 pursuant to section 255.043 of the Florida Statutes, which earmarks 0ne-half of one percent of the amount the legislature appropriates for the construction of state buildings for the acquisition of public artworks.

About Mark Fuller

An environmental graphic and industrial designer, Mark Fuller has been creating dynamic site specific sculptural installations for a wide variety of public art programs since 1992. “I specialize in the design and fabrication of contemporary public art installations,” says Mark, “and my work for Art in Public Places programs can be found in all four corners of the country.”

Fuller’s monumental work has been oriented primarily towards creating site-specific sculptural elements that help to establish a strong sense of place. In addition to his public art, his experience as an industrial designer includes urban street furniture such as seating elements, bollards, lighting fixtures, tree grates and telephone kiosks. His Art In Public Places installations have included kinetic constructions, compression-tension cable structures and static free-standing elements.

Fuller’s work is not predictable, nor can it be characterized by a specific look. Rather, it is highly stylized by his research into the unique function, architecture, environmental and cultural aspects that surround each project . As a result, the visual characteristics of Fuller’s installations flex and change with an appropriate sensitivity for the project at hand. His works are site-specific, and typically laced with symbolic or abstract references that link the art solidly to it’s environment.  ”My installations are typically colorful, playful, and site specific,” Fuller remarks. The National Endowment For The Arts concurs, calling his work “a good example of what public art can be.”

Fuller is a pioneer in creating installations that utilize cutting edge solar-generated electric power, LED luminaries and recycled glass waste materials. His most recent work, such as Depend du Soleil,  also explores the use of cutting edge high-tech dichroic coatings (see below). With an interest in promoting ‘green,’ low-carbon-footprint ideology, Mark continues to move forward developing appropriate eco-conscious fabrication methods and techniques.

Other Fuller Public Art Installations

While Mark Fuller’s public art pieces have been installed nationwide, Palm Beach Gardens has the most. In furtherance of its motto of “Live, Learn, Work and Play,” Palm Beach Gardens has dedicated 30% of its land to green space, created recreation programs tailored to residents of all ages, and built an award-winning Art in Public Places program that fosters a pro-active business climate that embraces innovation and an intrinsic understanding of the balance between social and economic conditions. That program has commissioned Fuller to create more than two dozen public art installations.

Stack 45 is a work that exemplifies the symbolic imagery typically found in a Fuller public artwork. It is a poignant tribute to urban designer Hank Skokowski, the city planner who designed PGA National, Ballen Isles and Palm Beach Gardens’ Legacy Place, a mixed use center located on PGA Boulevard and A1A that contains 469,000 square feet of retail space. Fuller’s best friend, Hank died tragically in a motorcycle accident in Australia shortly after completing Legacy Place. “Hank was weaned on 45s,” Fuller explains of the piece, whose five black outer semi-circular rings represent vinyl records and whose five colored inner circles symbolize the records’ labels. The piece is located in the center of a traffic circle, “metaphorically, a turntable,” Fuller notes. Fuller included five of each element in his piece to signify that Hank was but 55 when he died. “The semi-circular rings are arced back; a symbolic gesture of arms opened to the heavens.”

One of Fuller’s best known works is Obelisk, a gleaming 36′ foot tall spire on PGA Boulevard at Legacy Place. The piece features a mirror-polished stainless steel skin studded with 89,986 custom-made clear glass marbles that catch, refract and reflect the sunlight. “Stop by in the daylight and it’s a mirror, reflecting the Australian pines across the way, one of the city’s countless pink Mediterranean buildings and the PGA flyover,” writes Florida Weekly‘s Mary Jane Fine. “Stop by at night and the computer mechanism tucked inside performs a six-minute-long light show capable of painting the piece, Mr. Fuller says, with 12 million different colors.”

Just down the road in Delray Beach is a work that bears some resemblance to Depend du Soleil. Its name is Light Swimming (ded. 11-28-2007) and it was crafted for the South County Civic Center as part of Palm Beach County’s Art in Public Places program. Like Depend du Soleil, it is an ever-changing light display on the building’s west and south facades. Light Swimming is a shapeshifter whose colors and shadows transmute with the sun’s position in the sky and the viewer’s perspective as they walk or drive by. Depending on the time of day and sunlight’s intensity, it may bathe the civic center’s exterior walls in brilliant pinks, purples, blues and even hues of green. And like Depend du Soleil, Light Swimming also lights up at night thanks to solar-powered LED lights. Through the addition of dimensional hemispheres, the design further complements the civic center’s diagonal grid.

Fuller also received considerable attention and deserved acclaim for Palm Beach Gardens Fire-Rescue Department 9.11.01 Memorial Plaza, which he designed pro bono around a three story section of steel from the south tower of the World Trade Center that was bent due to the searing heat it was subjected to when the tower came down. The beam, which was located between the 12th and 15th floors of the south tower, is surrounded by benches and glass plaques etched with the names of the almost 3,000 victims of the attacks. ”We put it straight up to show Americans are still standing strong,” proclaims Fuller, who was in New York City the day before the attacks. Four Palm Beach Gardens police officers and four Palm Beach Gardens firefighters escorted the flag-draped beam from JFK International Airport in New York to its new home outside the fire station.

Closer to home, Fuller also crafted Cambier’s Quilt, the first public art project at a municipal building under the City of Naples’ public art ordinance. Sponsored by the Public Art Advisory Committee and city council, the installation consists of two structures that are nearly 12 feet tall and weigh 1,300 pounds. They each have 108 dicroic coated panels that pivot with the wind, changing color and reflecting the surroundings as they move. The piece is located at the new city parking garage, across from Cambier Park on Eight Street South, just south of Naples’ fabled Fifth Avenue South.

Depend du Soleil is one of two Mark Fuller works located at Florida Gulf Coast University. The other is titled Whatever You Say, Dear and is installed on the south facade of the Bower School of Music building. The latter piece uses light somewhat differently than Depend du Soleil. There, Fuller fashioned musical notation using powder-coated laser cut aluminum plating. He suspended the staff several inches off the wall so that the duplets, triplets, flats and other musical notes will cast shadows against the building’s facade. Like its mathematical sister, Whatever You Say, Dear displays Fuller’s flair for the fun and whimsical.

A Word About Dichroic Coatings

Dichroic is a term that normally refers to glass that is made with tiny proportions of minutely ground metals (like gold and silver) or oxides (such as titanium, chromium, aluminum, zirconium, magnesium or silica) mixed into the glass. The suspended particles in the glass cause certain wavelengths of light to either pass through or be reflected. This causes an array of color to be displayed which shifts depending on the angle of view and the location of the sun or artificial light source.

The oldest example of dichroic glass is the Lycurgus Cup, a Roman glass cage cup that can be found in the British Museum. The cup appears red when lit from behind and green when lit from in front. As a result of this optical quality, it has been described as the most spectacular glass of the period and is the only complete Roman object made from this type of glass.

Today, dichroic glass is influenced by research carried out by NASA and its contractors, who developed it for use in dichroic filters. Dichroic filters are sometimes called color separation filters because their purpose is to separate incoming visible light into separate colors or into beams of different wavelengths. Dichroic coatings achieve this color or wavelength separation with a much higher degree of accuracy than conventional filters. Applications of dichroic filters or color separation filters include color correction and light balancing, and they are found in architectural, studio and  theatrical lighting, color TV or camcorder cameras, automated color  sorting systems, color enlargers and color projectors.

The filters and coatings are made by vaporizing metals or oxides with an electron beam in a vacuum chamber. The vapor condenses on the surface of the material in the form of uni-axially arranged crystal structures. A protective layer of quartz crystal is also sometimes added. The coating that is created is very similar to a gemstone and, by careful control of thickness, different colors may be obtained.

Fast Facts.

• Mark Fuller was born in 1953 and has resided since 1988 in West Palm Beach, Florida.
• Depend du Soleil cost $71,200.
• The sculpture extends 44 feet up the south facade of FGCU Academic Building #7 and is 23 feet wide.

Related Articles and Links.

• Mark Fuller, the man behind ‘Depend du Soleil’ and ‘Whatever You Say, Dear‘ (06-21-12)
• Depend du Soleil contributes to FGCU’s growing aesthetic culture (06-19-12)

Jutting from the south wall of the Bower School of Music are 11 musical staves brimming with duplets, triplets and other notes. Made of powder-coated laser cut aluminum plate, the musical notation is a wall sculpture titled Whatever You Say, Dear created for Florida Gulf Coast University by West Palm Beach public artist Mark Fuller.

Each staff stands 2.5 feet tall and holds an assortment of clefs and notes that range from 30 to 36 inches high.  Fuller has mounted each staff several inches off the wall in order to accentuate the deep shadows they cast, which strengthen and fade during the course of the day as they interact with the natural light. But on top of that, Fuller has strategically arranged the staves so that they appear to be coming out of the architectural recesses and indentations designed into the building’s facade, visually reinforcing the idea that music emanates from inside as students and faculty practice and perform within.

States the dedication for Whatever You Say, Dear, “Mr. Fuller shares his flare for fun and whimsy, while successfully capturing a stated goal for the project – ‘to show the first time visitor that this is the music building.’” But the sculptor adds with characteristic self-deprecation, “I can’t read music; my girlfriend is an opera singer; and I don’t speak much Italian. Her voice is like music to my ears, so I titled this piece in pun to reflect my lack of understanding of what she sings, how she thinks, or what this stave might actually sound like.”

Completed on May 31, 2011, Whatever You Say, Dear is part of the Florida Art in Public Buildings program, an initiative started in 1979 pursuant to section 255.043 of the Florida Statutes, which earmarks 0ne-half of one percent of the amount the legislature appropriates for the construction of state buildings for the acquisition of public artworks.

About Mark Fuller

An environmental graphic and industrial designer, Mark Fuller has been creating dynamic site specific sculptural installations for a wide variety of public art programs since 1992. “I specialize in the design and fabrication of contemporary public art installations,” says Mark, “and my work for Art in Public Places programs can be found in all four corners of the country.”

Fuller’s monumental work has been oriented primarily towards creating site-specific sculptural elements that help to establish a strong sense of place. In addition to his public art, his experience as an industrial designer includes urban street furniture such as seating elements, bollards, lighting fixtures, tree grates and telephone kiosks. His Art In Public Places installations have included kinetic constructions, compression-tension cable structures and static free-standing elements.

Fuller’s work is not predictable, nor can it be characterized by a specific look. Rather, it is informed by his research into the unique function, architecture, environmental and cultural aspects that surround each project . As a result, the visual characteristics of Fuller’s installations flex and change with an appropriate sensitivity for the project at hand. His works are site-specific, and typically laced with symbolic or abstract references that link the art solidly to it’s environment.  ”My installations are typically colorful, playful, and site specific,” Fuller remarks. The National Endowment For The Arts concurs, calling his work “a good example of what public art can be.”

Fuller is a pioneer in creating installations that utilize cutting edge solar-generated electric power, LED luminaries and recycled glass waste materials. His most recent work, such as Depend du Soleil,  also explores the use of cutting edge high-tech dichroic coatings. With an interest in promoting ‘green,’ low-carbon-footprint ideology, Mark continues to move forward developing appropriate eco-conscious fabrication methods and techniques.

Other Fuller Public Art Installations

While Mark Fuller’s public art pieces have been installed nationwide, Palm Beach Gardens has the most. In furtherance of its motto of “Live, Learn, Work and Play,” Palm Beach Gardens has dedicated 30% of its land to green space, created recreation programs tailored to residents of all ages, and built an award-winning Art in Public Places program that fosters a pro-active business climate that embraces innovation and an intrinsic understanding of the balance between social and economic conditions. That program has commissioned Fuller to create more than two dozen public art installations.

Stack 45 is a work that exemplifies the symbolic imagery typically found in a Fuller public artwork. It is a poignant tribute to urban designer Hank Skokowski, the city planner who designed PGA National, Ballen Isles and Palm Beach Gardens’ Legacy Place, a mixed use center located on PGA Boulevard and A1A that contains 469,000 square feet of retail space. Fuller’s best friend, Hank died tragically in a motorcycle accident in Australia shortly after completing Legacy Place. “Hank was weaned on 45s,” Fuller explains of the piece, whose five black outer semi-circular rings represent vinyl records and whose five colored inner circles symbolize the records’ labels. The piece is located in the center of a traffic circle, “metaphorically, a turntable,” Fuller notes. Fuller included five of each element in his piece to signify that Hank was but 55 when he died. “The semi-circular rings are arced back; a symbolic gesture of arms opened to the heavens.”

One of Fuller’s best known works is Obelisk, a gleaming 36′ foot tall spire on PGA Boulevard at Legacy Place. The piece features a mirror-polished stainless steel skin studded with 89,986 custom-made clear glass marbles that catch, refract and reflect the sunlight. “Stop by in the daylight and it’s a mirror, reflecting the Australian pines across the way, one of the city’s countless pink Mediterranean buildings and the PGA flyover,” writes Florida Weekly‘s Mary Jane Fine. “Stop by at night and the computer mechanism tucked inside performs a six-minute-long light show capable of painting the piece, Mr. Fuller says, with 12 million different colors.”

Just down the road in Delray Beach is Light Swimming (ded. 11-28-2007). Fuller crafted it for the South County Civic Center pursuant to Palm Beach County’s Art in Public Places program. Like Depend du Soleil, it is an ever-changing light display on the building’s west and south facades. Light Swimming is a shapeshifter whose colors and shadows transmute with the sun’s position in the sky and the viewer’s perspective as they walk or drive by. Depending on the time of day and sunlight’s intensity, it may bathe the civic center’s exterior walls in brilliant pinks, purples, blues and even hues of green. And Light Swimming also lights up at night thanks to solar-powered LED lights. Through the addition of dimensional hemispheres, the design further complements the civic center’s diagonal grid.

Fuller also received considerable attention and deserved acclaim for Palm Beach Gardens Fire-Rescue Department 9.11.01 Memorial Plaza, which he designed pro bono around a three story section of steel from the south tower of the World Trade Center that was bent due to the searing heat it was subjected to when the tower came down. The beam, which was located between the 12th and 15th floors of the south tower, is surrounded by benches and glass plaques etched with the names of the almost 3,000 victims of the attacks. ”We put it straight up to show Americans are still standing strong,” proclaims Fuller, who was in New York City the day before the attacks. Four Palm Beach Gardens police officers and four Palm Beach Gardens firefighters escorted the flag-draped beam from JFK International Airport in New York to its new home outside the fire station.

Closer to home, Fuller also crafted Cambier’s Quilt, the first public art project at a municipal building under the City of Naples’ public art ordinance. Sponsored by the Public Art Advisory Committee and city council, the installation consists of two structures that are nearly 12 feet tall and weigh 1,300 pounds. They each have 108 dicroic coated panels that pivot with the wind, changing color and reflecting the surroundings as they move. The piece is located at the new city parking garage, across from Cambier Park on Eight Street South, just south of Naples’ fabled Fifth Avenue South.

Whatever You Day, Dear is one of two Mark Fuller works located on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University. The other is titled Depend du Soleil and it employs transparent acrylic panels treated with a dichroic coating to produce subtle and ever-changing puddles of color on the southern facade of Academic Building #7. Unlike Whatever You Say, Dear, which goes dormant at nightfall, Depend du Soleil comes alive at night compliments of a technologically-sophisticated solar ovonic panel and battery that is mounted on top of the canopy overhanging the south entrance to AB#7. Day or night, the playful and whimsical Depend du Soleil creates an ever-changing light show for FGCU faculty, students and visitors.

Fast Facts.

• Mark Fuller was born in 1953 and has resided since 1988 in West Palm Beach, Florida.
• Whatever You Day, Dear cost $33,900.
• The sculpture extends 44 feet up the south facade of FGCU Academic Building #7 and is 23 feet wide.

Related Articles and Links.

• Whatever You Day, Dear is FGCU public art piece with a sense of humor (06-21-12)
• Mark Fuller, the man behind ‘Depend du Soleil’ and ‘Whatever You Say, Dear (06-21-12)

Herbert J. Sugden Hall at Florida Gulf Coast University looks more like a resort-style hotel than an academic building. But that’s because the sophisticated two-story 37,000-square-foot building functions as a working laboratory for students enrolled in its top-rated Resort & Hospitality Management program. It includes a wine and food technology laboratory equipped with light panels for visual wine evaluation, a high-end residential kitchen for wine pairings and expert demonstrations, built-in spittoon sinks for tasting, and video and internet technology for oenological learning experiences. Among the building’s other features is a ballroom, space for events and functions, a prototype spa laboratory area equipped with wet and dry treatment rooms, a hair and nail salon, a steam and whirlpool area and “arrival sculpture” at both entrances – the kind of pieces one would expect to find at a resort.

The one that sits outside Sugden Hall’s south entrance is called Skyward. Created by St. Petersburg sculptor Clayton Swartz, it is a bright and contemporary abstract made of brushed aluminum with surface color made from clear-coat enamel paint. Swartz’s use of bold geometric shapes and bright, saturated colors gives Skyward a feel of lightness and fun that complements the inviting and spacious building. “I describe it as a performance or dance with the material,” says Swartz, “a chance to change something raw into something beautiful.”

Skyward soars 12 feet into the southwest Florida sky and measures 4 feet across at its widest point. It rests on a concrete pedestal to lend it even greater height and is accentuated by ground lighting which makes it visible to students and faculty at the Student Union located at the other end of the lily-pad-covered crescent-shaped pond that’s nestled between the two buildings. Thanks to the building’s open design, it is also visible to visitors as they enter Sugden Hall through its north entrance.

Like Sugden Hall itself, Skyward works in conjunction with the education students receive. “It has a very uplifting theme,” says Swartz , who adds that “[l]ooking into one of my sculptures will take you deep into a maze of parts, design, formal unities and holistic composition that will give you a sense of revelation into the sculpture’s design and meaning.”

About Clayton Swartz

Clayton Swartz started out as an abstract painter, a hobby he pursued while attending St. Petersburg College. However, after receiving his BFA from the University of South Florida, he began to transition into metal sculpture. Although he continued to paint (and even dabbled a bit in photography) during his 5-year tenure as an art teacher at St. Petersburg’s Northeast High School, he increasingly favored metal sculpture, developing a unique style that concentrated on colorful biomorphic and abstract shapes that ranged from sealife to cityscapes. He then took to the road, exhibiting at art festivals throughout the state, quickly gaining a reputation and following that has enabled him to pursue art professionally since 2005.

“My medium lends itself more to public art,” Swartz told Tampa Bay Times Staff Writer Mike Brassfield in September of 2010. “It withstands the elements, and I tend to like to work big.” He was referring at the time to an 18-foot-tall aluminum sculpture by the name of Constellation (left) that was on display in the landscaped medians of Cleveland Street as part of Clearwater’s Sculpture 360 public art program.

Swartz is perhaps best known for his 1,200 pound, 20-foot-tall sculpture at Park Station in Largo, The Heart of Pinellas (right). This monumental work aptly illustrates Swartz’s signature style. The piece is crafted of brushed aluminum and features as host of interwoven geometric and biomorphic shapes. Swartz then finishes the sculpture with painted surfaces that utilize an automotive finish that gives the topography of his sculpture dynamic colors and an iridescent sheen.

In addition to Florida Gulf Coast University, Sculpture 360 and Largo’s Park Station, Swartz’s has been included in such major public and corporate collections as the City of Pinellas Park, Pinellas Gateway Chamber of Commerce, All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg (left, which has 20 of Swartz’s signature brightly-colored creations), 400 Beach Seafood & Tap House Restaurant, Salt Rock Grill and Homewood Suites Tampa/Brandon (which features Swartz’s 7-foot sculpture Shades of the Florida Reef to better connect extended-stay travelers with the community in which they are staying).

His credits include honors at the 2011 ArtFest Fort Myers (where his art was used as the design logo for the event’s T-shirts), the Award of Merit at the 34th Annual Mainsail Arts Festival in St. Petersburg in 2009 and a feature in The Tampa Tribune. Today, he showcases his work in his Pinellas Park studio, select galleries, art festivals and selected Tampa Bay charities.

“My work blends modern abstract sensibilities with formal subjects.” His current work often contains ocean life, expressing Swartz’s abiding fascination with the sea and hobbies including scuba diving, spear fishing and boating. His sculptures often incorporate hearts, which symbolize his strong connection to his family and deep respect for life. “My modern abstracts illustrate a passion for vibrant color and form.”

Swartz uses an array of techniques and processes to create his aluminum sculptures. “My metal working process employs MIG and TIG welding, plasma cutting, and grinding. When fabrication is complete, the color process begins. Using an array of brushes, airbrushes and paint moving tools, I coat my work with a saturated translucent automotive finish. These special techniques are used to create vital effects in the work that treat each shape as its own abstract painting while simultaneously working in conjunction with the whole sculpture.”

A Note about Art Festivals

Many artists make their living exhibiting and selling their work at art festivals. More than a thousand festivals take place across the continental United States each year. Southwest Florida’s robust festival season alone accounts for more than 50 art fairs and shows between mid-October and mid-April of the ensuing year from Marco Island to Matlacha. [Crowd at ArtFest Fort Myers in February, 2012.]

Entry into these festivals is not automatic. Most are juried. To be considered for inclusion, artists must apply months in advance for booth space. Then typically a blind jury selects the best 100-250 from the 1,000 or more applications the organizers receive. Thus, there are no guarantees that just because an artist makes it into a festival one year he will be invited back in the ensuing year even if he continues to maintain high standards for technique, concept and originality. [At left, the artworks on display at the Downtown Naples Festival of the Arts in March, 2012 vie for attention with golden trumpet trees.]

“Different shows have different qualities about them,” Clayton Swartz notes. “But obviously the better shows, the shows you make the most money at, are the ones you want to get into.” Such as ArtFest Fort Myers (which attracts 55,000 visitors over the course of three days) , Naples National Art Festival (#10 art festival in the United States according to Sunshine Artist Magazine, and a show that has been in the top ten five years running), Bonita Springs National Art Festival (whose January and March 2011 festivals were ranked #11 and 27 in the nation by Sunshine Artist magazine), the Downtown Naples Festival of the Arts (the #24 art festival in the entire nation in 2011 according to Sunshine Artist Magazine), Naples Invitational Art Fest (ranked #55 in 2011 by Sunshine Artist), the Downtown Naples New Year’s Art Fair (the #62 art festival in the United States according to Sunshine Artist Magazine, and one that has been in the top 100 five years running), and the Mercato Fine Art Festival (the #75 art festival in 2011 according to Sunshine Artist Magazine). [Sculpture display at January, 2012 Bonita Springs National Art Festival.]

Working the festival circuit is not without sacrifice. Artists spend weekends away from families, sometimes setting up before sunrise on Saturdays, only to sell one or two pieces. A rainy, windblown day can ruin it all. Some artists participate in as many as 50 festivals a year, meaning that they are on the road for months at a time. Swartz is more fortunate. He limits himself to just ten fairs each season, and since most if not all are located in Florida, Swartz is able to return home after each one to be with his wife, Rachel, and four children and re-stoke his creative fires in his 1,800-square-foot studio out back.

Fast Facts.

• As a boy, Swartz learned welding his father, Michael, who welded and brazed metals into unique sculptures of his own.
• Both of his grandmothers were also creative.
• Swartz credits as his other influences contemporaries such as Frank Stella, David Smith, Roy Lichtenstein and Keith Haring.
• Swartz is a member of the Florida Craftsmen, a statewide non-profit organization headquartered in St. Petersburg, FL.
• He comes from a closely-knit family which is the reason why most of his pieces contain a heart in some fashion or another.

Florida Gulf Coast University’s public art collection consists of both monumental outdoor sculptures and indoor paintings, photographs and mobiles. Among FGCU’s indoor public art collection are four photographs by renowned photographer Karen Glaser:

1. Dust Storm, a 2006 pigment print photo hanging in the 2nd floor corridor of Academic Building 5 (above right);
2. Fire in the Pines #1, a 2010 pigment print photo hanging in Conference Room 210 in Academic Building 5;
3. Ichetucknee Fog, a 2010 pigment print photo hanging in the 3rd floor corridor of Academic Building 5; and
4. Ichetucknee Cypress, a 2010 pigment print photo hanging in Conference Room 309 of Academic Building 5.

Dust Storm, Ichetucknee Fog (left) and Ichetucknee Cypress come form a series of pictures that Glaser shot predominantly in the pristine freshwater rivers and springs of north and central Florida, places like the Orange Grove Sink in the Peacock Springs Cave System in Suwannee County, Silver Glen in the Ocala National Forest in Marion County, Manatee Springs State Park and the crystalline Ichetucknee River that flows for six glorious miles through shaded hammocks and wetlands before it joins with the Sante Fe River. But Glaser didn’t trek to the Ichetucknee to tube the river with hordes of students from nearby University of Florida. “My husband and I snorkled the Ichetucknee in winter, when the air was 40 degrees and the water 68,” Glaser recalls. “But we didn’t go then merely to avoid the tubers. That’s when the garfish spawn.” (Above, right.)

Before entering a spring, river or swamp to snap pictures, Glaser always does her homework to find out what’s in the body of water she is interested in shooting. Hearkening back to lessons learned in SCUBA, the photographer is also an unwavering adherent of the buddy system. “I always take a partner,” Glaser insists. “You don’t have a long time to take a picture because things change very quickly.” As a result, she has a tendency to become rather single-minded when she is in the middle of an underwater or swamp shoot. “I tend to follow points of interest without paying attention, and that’s where having a partner proves invaluable.”

Her work in north and central Florida’s rivers and springs inculcated a desire in Glaser to shoot Florida’s swamps, so she applied to become an artist in residence at the Big Cypress National Preserve. This move gave her unequaled access to places other people don’t get to explore. Here, too, homework and the buddy system proved invaluable. Asked to relate the worst thing that ever happened to her while shooting in a swamp, Glaser credited her reliance on rangers and other park employees with excusing her from any incidents more harmful than “being covered with welts from mosquito bites.” She also credits park rangers and a helicopter pilot with providing her access to the fire she shuttered for Fire in the Pines #1(right), an image that might have otherwise eluded her.

About Karen Glaser

For more than two decades, Karen Glaser has been photographing underwater ecosystems, including deep water oceans, coastal reefs, freshwater springs, outdoor swimming pools, and wild swamplands. Taking her camera both above and below the surface of America’s coastal waters and Florida’s wetlands, she has captured diverse forms of life that have existed since prehistoric times. Glaser’s photographs of these remote spaces have a timeless quality in the tradition of Audubon’s ornithological watercolors or Da Vinci’s water drawings. Taken with a 35mm camera and only using available light, the images appear distinctively grainy, further abstracting these rarely seen worlds. They elevate the complexity and fragility of aquatic systems that lie beyond the day-to-day perspective of most people.

Glaser’s photography has found a very wide audience through commissions and permanent public art installations. For example, her photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City: Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin; Portland Art Museum in Oregon; National Park Service; Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago; Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego; Parque de los Deseos in Medellin, Columbia; the LaSalle Bank and Chase Bank collections in Chicago; the New York Public Library; the University of Louisville; the Museum of Science in Miami; Illinois Collection, State of Illinois Center; the Port of Miami; and the David C. and the Sarajean Ruttenberg Collection, Chicago, IL.

Her work has been featured in many solo exhibitions and been represented in numerous group exhibitions across the United States. In 2011 alone, her photography was the subject of three prestigious solo shows, Dark Sharks/Light Rays at PHOTO in Oakland, California (9/22-10/29/11), The Hillsborough River from the Green Swamp to the Bay at the Tampa Museum of Art (7/2-10/16/11), and The Mark of Water: Florida’s Springs and Swamps, a touring exhibition organized and circulated by the Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona State College, Daytona Beach, Florida. The Mark of Water exhibited locally at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery on the Lee campus of Edison State College from October 7 through December 3, 2011 and resulted in the highest attendance recorded by the gallery in two years.

Glaser’s underwater photographs of manatees are documented in the book, Mysterious Manatees, published by the University Press of Florida and the Center for American Places. A travelling exhibition of her manatee work was organized by the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. It then toured to more than twenty venues in the United States, including the Georgia Museum of Natural History; Ocean Life Center in Atlantic City; Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History in California; the Museum of History and Natural Sciences in Florida; the Naval Undersea Museum inKeyport, Washington; the Natural History Museum of the University of Kansas; and the Natural Science Center of Greensboro, North Carolina.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Glaser holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington. She is an adjunct instructor of photography in Chicago and has been a guest lecturer at Wild Photos, Royal Geographical Society, London; the USF Humanities Institute (which hosted events celebrating the Hillsborough River through art, literature, history, archeology and ecology in the Fall of 2012); the May, 2013 Blue Mind 3 summit (an annual conference that brings together neuroscientists, oceanographers, explorers, educators and artists to consider “the human brain on water”); the Everglades National Park; Big Cypress National Preserve; Fanning Springs State Park; University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; Museum of Science, Miami; Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, California; University of Illinois at Chicago; Northlight Gallery, Arizona State University; and at Centro Colombo Americano, Escuela Popular de Artes, Universidad de Medellín as part of FotoFiesta.

Glaser has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and Arts Midwest/National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Regional Fellowship. She has been a Fellow at the Hermitage Artist’s Retreat in Florida and Artist in Residence at both Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve. In 2010, Karen was appointed as the Photographer Laureate for the City of Tampa, Florida, and in February of 2012, the Carnegie Museum of Art and Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab invited her to join a select group of contemporary artists to participate in a collaborative project involving an innovation called GigaPan. It is new technology developed by CREATE Lab, NASA and Google to explore imaging boundaries and create “something we have never seen before or could have even imagined.”

Her images have been featured and reviewed in Harper’s, Orion Magazine, Photo District News, Lens Culture, Origo (Hungary), Popular Photography, Swimmers: Seventy International Photographers (Aperture), New Chicago Photographers (Museum of Contemporary Photography) and Alternative Photographic Processes.

A Word About her Photographic Process

What makes Glaser’s photography so appealing is her willingness to go remote places that are exceedingly difficult to reach in order to bring back unique views of rare landscapes, most shot underwater. Glaser’s eye is strongly attracted to ambiguous spaces. “When you are underwater, the space is ambiguous,” Glaser notes. As a result of this emphasis, the viewer is often unsure whether a given image portrays underwater or land-born images, a photograph or a watercolor painting. “This ambiguity is their strength,” says Glaser, “and very much part of the world from which they came.”

Glaser’s photographs are influenced by her art background rather than a biological or scientific point of view. “Several critics have called my pictures ‘messy.’ In a good way. They’re honest. I don’t clean them up.” Many are clouded by the mud, muck, pollen and tannins that are common to Florida’s wetlands. While this detritus and particulate matter may mar the water’s clarity, “it is in fact its lifeblood,” or as Glaser more poetically describes it, “the living and breathing matter that seasons the soup and reflects, refracts, and bends the light to create its complexity.”

As a result of her steadfast refusal to clean up her images, they are as layered, complex and powerful as the environments she captures on film. The effect is amplified by her unwillingness to use flash photography. “I only use natural light.” She also still uses analog film. “I will continue shooting analog until they don’t make film any more,” Glaser avers. That’s not because film is any better than digital technology. “I just like the results I get with film.” She does work with a digital guru, who drum scans her negatives and prints her images digitally, and is now exploring digital photography in earnest in connection with the CREATE Lab’s GigaPan project. “Analog is better for some things and digital is better for others. One is a screwdriver and one is a hammer…they are just different tools.”

In 2010, she took her camera into the waters of Florida’s springs, swamps and waterways to provides a unique interpretation of these distinctive environments. She characterizes the Everglades as “primal,” “primitive” and challenging due to its sheer scale. “The wetland environments of Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park contain many unique ecosystems,” says Glaser, “including freshwater and saltwater marshes, dry and wet prairies, hardwood hammocks, mangrove forests, vast acres of primeval swamp, and of course the river of grass. The tie that binds these extraordinary regions and these photographs together is water. Much of this underwater world is primordial or aboriginal; and only partially touched by the hand of culture and society.”

However, Glaser avoids politicizing her pictures. She leaves it to others to use her pictures “to show people what’s worth saving.” Instead, she focuses on merely making her images as seductive. “Seductive images cause people to think versus telling them what to think.” For Glaser, though, part of the seduction is knowing that many of her Big Cypress and Everglades National Park shots came from wild, untouched swamps “a mere forty-five minutes from the sprawl of Miami to the east and Naples to the west.”

Because of the environmental content, depth and resolution of her images, it is tempting to draw comparisons between Glaser’s work and that of Ansel Adams. “I’m closer in temperament to a street photographer, like Henri Cartier-Bresson,” Glaser notes, paraphrasing the quote Cartier-Bresson gave to the Washington Post in 1957: ”There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.” [In 1952, Cartier-Bresson published his book Images à la sauvette, whose English edition was titled The Decisive Moment. In the book's 4,500-word preface, Cartier-Bresson reproduced text from the 17th century Cardinal de Retz, who said, "There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment." Cartier-Bresson applied this to his photographic style, contending that "photography is simultaneously and instantaneously the recognition of a fact and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that express and signify that fact."]

The theme that unifies all of Glaser’s images is the desire to “show [viewers] what [they] haven’t seen” before. Each sensuous image affords a moment of awareness, reflection and introspection and conveys the mystery and primal power of this environment in a unique and personal view that is simultaneously unfamiliar, alluring and visceral. She evokes this otherworldly aquatic realm as no other photographer has done before.

As Ms. Glaser sums up in her Artist Statement, “[t]he mystery of these waters and the complicated puzzle of their continued existence inspires these pictures and continues to summon us to look even deeper.”

Fast Facts.

• The Anna Lamar Switzer Center of the Visual Arts in Pensacola named Glaser their 2013 Distinguished Artist, an honor they accorded in 2011 to Christo and Jean-Claude.
• The Anna Lamar Switzer Center for the Visual Arts also exhibited Glaser’s Mark of Water show in 2013.
• The Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida will host The Mark of Water from February 11 through July 6, 2014.
• Glaser’s photography will also be included by Sanibel’s Watson MacRae Gallery in its Landscapes: A Different View exhibition, which opens on February 11, 2014.

Related Articles and Links.

• http://www.karenglaserphotography.com
• Photos by underwater photographer Karen Glaser on permanent display at FGCU (06-22-12)
• FGCU proud to display images by prestigious underwater photographer Karen Glaser (06-22-12)
• Photographer Glaser brings back unique images from remote, dangerous places (06-22-12)
• Spotlight on Karen Glaser and ‘Mark of Water’ exhibit at Rauschenberg Gallery – 1 (10-29-11)
• Spotlight on Karen Glaser and ‘Mark of Water’ exhibit at Rauschenberg Gallery – 2 (10-29-11)
• Spotlight on Karen Glaser and ‘Mark of Water’ exhibit at Rauschenberg Gallery – 3 (10-29-11)
• Reception tomorrow night at Bob Rauschenberg for photographer Karen Glaser (10-27-11)
• Profiling Bob Rauschenberg Gallery photography exhibitor Karen Glaser (10-07-11)
• Underwater photography exhibit opens at Bob Rauschenberg Gallery October 28 (10-07-11)

Hanging in the atrium on the first floor of Library East is an acrylic on canvas painting titled High Five. It is part of Florida Gulf Coast University’s public art collection. But this work was not commissioned or acquired under the Florida Art in Public Buildings Program (Fla. Stat. s. 255.043). Rather, it was a gift from recent graduate Alina Eydel, who received her Bachelors of Arts from FGCU in 2011. “The painting was inspired by FGCU, so I wanted the university to have it,” Eydel states.

The painting is a study in metaphors. Each finger is a skyscraper; the heart line, head line and life line bisecting the palm are formed by golden trunked trees. “The campus is in the middle of an eco-preserve,” explains Eydel. And its 15-acre solar farm produces approximately 85 percent of the energy needed by the university to operate its Engineering and Business School buildings, as well as the Arts and Sciences’ laboratory and classroom building, AB#7. Tilting and rotating throughout the day as they track the sun, the solar panels generate 2 megawatts of energy per day, saving FGCU an estimated $22 million over 30 years.

“The university emphasizes environmental sustainability and eco-friendly living. The combination of skyscrapers and trees entwined within the human hand symbolizes an ecologically-balanced society. Technology can overpower nature, but human beings have the ability to balance our ecosystem and protect it before it’s too late. High Five says that nature and industrialization can co-exist harmoniously.”

Eydel contrasts the powerful raised hand against a gold leaf background to express yet another metaphor. “It is a blend of American and Russian Orthodox iconography,” Alina reveals, alluding to the fact that while her strength and passion are unquestionably American, they bear the pervasive influence of her Russian background. Not that Alina remembers Russia. She was but 2 years old when her parent left Kiev during the collapse of the Soviet Union. But her mother (an interior designer) and father (a graphic designer) have encouraged her artistically since she could hold a pencil, and later a paint brush, and have passed along their own classical art training to their impresario daughter.

“Gold leaf is very important in Russian iconic painting,” where it was regularly used for halos and background areas, “and the high five is an iconic American gesture.”

It is also interesting to note that Eydel included two of the FGCU’s school colors in High Five, namely cobalt blue and old gold (leaving out only emerald green), although the artist maintains that the color palette was purely coincidental.

High Five is one of a limited number of paintings that evolved from Eydel’s 2009-2011 Precious Balance series. It was a personal favorite of both the artist and her mother, Lana, and included in Eydel’s Precious Balance exhibition at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center in the downtown Fort Myers River District.

The Art of Alina Eydel

Alina Eydel considers her paintings surrealist. Not in the sense of Dali’s melting clocks or nightmare expressions emanating from the artist’s unconscious, but because they feature non sequiturs, unexpected juxtapositions and, especially, the element of surprise in order to wring dual meaning out of the images she portrays. “Even though they are figurative and sometimes concerned with costume design, I juxtapose and blend unexpected symbols to form new meanings.  Even something as lighthearted as a palm tree dress is my expression of how I understand the world around me.”

Eydel uses this designed contrast to convey both an intellectual and visceral message. The goal of Eydel’s figurative work, for example, is to draw attention to ethereal and eternal qualities such as harmony, health and the preciousness of the human body, a point she underscores by using semi-precious materials to transform torsos into metaphors for treasure and suggest the body is a priceless vessel that demands to be cherished and protected.

Her paintings also possess an intriguing Byzantine iconic edge. The flat, almost two-dimensional texture-filled geometrical shapes and abstract patterns that dominate the bulk of her compositions also serve as juxtaposition for the faces, hands and feet of her figures. The latter seem to jump off the canvas with a depth, dimension and animus informed by shadows, shading and Eydel’s adept blending of flesh tones. This contradistinction is homage to the technique of inverse perspective in evidence in many 15th Century Byzantine iconic paintings and mosaics.

“I exaggerate the contemporary perceptions of aesthetics and synthesize them with my own impressions and experiences, especially from traveling and observing nature,” states the 22-year old. “I further explore elegance and femininity using the ancient idea of mosaic,” an idea she got from the floor-to-ceiling Murano glass mosaics in St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice during a trip to Italy when she was 13.

“The mosaics glowed from within, and the entire cathedral was like a giant jewelry box. It was incredibly inspiring. When I came home, I synthesized the idea of mosaic with my … paintings by gluing glass beads, Swarovski crystals, pearls, turquoise and other items onto the surfaces of my paintings.” It was a creative spark for which she’d been prepared by growing up in Hollywood, surrounded by its fabled glamour and glitz. ”I was influenced by all the Oscar parties,” Alina admits unabashedly. “I really wanted to be a costume designer for awhile, so all of my paintings started to reflect the glamour I was really interested in. That led me to begin experimenting with different textures like fabric, feathers and marbles.”

She has now been employing this mixed media approach in her paintings for about eight years, “and I’m perfecting it every day.” Her desire to perfect her stylized mosaic technique has recently led her to begin using butterfly wings as a mixed media material in her compositions. ”The butterflies come from eco-friendly farms in India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Peru, Malaysia and Indonesia,” points out Anthony Jensen of Prominent Gallery, which represents Eydel. “The butterflies have a pretty short lifespan. The butterfly farmers collect the wings when the butterflies die, so none of them are killed.” And since they live and reproduce under the lush rain forest canopy, their farming helps prevent deforestation of valuable rain forest land that might otherwise be appropriated for logging or agriculture.”

But butterfly wings, Swarovski crystals, pearls and turquoise are not merely intriguing mixed media materials. They enrich Eydel’s lexicon of metaphors. “I see the human body as a part of nature that has to be preserved and treasured. So my Precious series is about how delicate and precious our bodies are. I use glass beads, Swarovski crystals and semi-precious materials like agates, coral and turquoise to emphasize and state a metaphor that our body is a piece of treasure or jewel that has to be cherished.”

In Love (left), Eydel also uses beads to represent the moments of our lives. “Each conversation, each touch turn into mosaics of moments,” Eydel sagely observes. The bead work also infuses the composition with a distinctively meditative quality. Many of her works express mantras. Prosperity, health, balance and love are frequently incorporated into the themes Eydel expresses. “Painting brings love into my life, and simultaneously expresses the love in my life. I’m fiery and passionate when it comes to love.” Which Eydel signifies through the vibrant red, orange and gold color palette she uses in the composition.

Whether beads, crystals or butterfly wings, the delightfully surprising materials and textures that Eydel uses in her canvases transform the works into painted pieces of jewelry, prompting Eydel to refer to her paintings as jewelry for walls or mosaics on canvas. “Such a multidimensionality of texture is intrinsically surreal; each piece is both a painting and jewelry at once,” Eydel writes. “Each piece is also a painting and a mosaic at once.” This duality corresponds to her iconography, in which a dress or a hand or a torso or a flower is not just what it is, but also a symbol for something else entirely.

A Word About the Artist

Eydel is classically trained and employs those rigors in the creation of her canvases. As expected, she begins each composition with a painstaking sketch. She then paints the imagery as she would a regular acrylic piece. But then she glues mixed media materials such as beads, crystals, precious stones and butterfly wings onto the canvas using tweezers and a special acid-free adhesive. Once the mosaic on canvas is complete, it is varnished and left to dry.

Alina credits both of her parents as artistic influences. Igor and Svetlana Eydel were educated as designers at the Leningrad School of Art and Design, one of the finest art schools in Russia. As a youngster, Alina studied her parents intently as they worked on their designs. She began imitating them when she was just three. “I would watch what they were working on and then doodle my own fantasies,” Eydel recalls. By the time she was six, a gallerist friend admonished Lana to stop torturing Alina with crayons and magic markers and buy her a set of acrylics, brushes and some canvases. “They also guided me with color combinations and composition, teaching me to design my paintings from an early age.”

Igor and Lana also began saving her prodigious work. When Alina turned nine, Igor made a website for her daughter. “It attracted my first collectors.” By the time she was 10, Igor and Lana had amassed enough artwork to enable their daughter to begin exhibiting, and she experienced her first solo exhibition in 2000 at SOHO La Gallery in Los Angeles. The following year, she enjoyed solo shows in Laguna Nigeul and Laguna Beach, and two years aft that she began producing a nautical collection for Princess Cruise Lines. “I went on a cruise to Tahiti with my parents,” Alina explains. “They had a great art program on board and at the suggestion of the art director, I submitted my portfolio to the cruise line.” Not surprisingly, Princess loved it. Today, her paintings are also sold at auction aboard Cunard, Holland America and Disney.

Though just 22, she has already sold more than 700 substantial works, and her paintings range in price today from $2,000 to $40,000. To date, her art has been shown in 24 group and a staggering 21 solo exhibitions, including:

• Art Sarasota, aboard the Seafair; March 2012
• ArtNaples Contemporary Art Fair; March 2012
• Solo show, Foley Performing Arts Center, Foley, AL; January 2012
  
• Solo show, Sweet Art Gallery, Naples, FL;  October, 2011
• Fantasies in Ink: a Collection of Drawings by Alina Eydel, FGCU Art Gallery, FortMyers, FL; January 2011
• Solo cruise aboard the Star Princess; March 2011
• Solo Cruise aboard the Disney Magic; December 2010
• SOLO ArtMiami; November 2010
• Solo Cruise aboard the Crown Princess; January 2010
• Precious Balance, Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center, Fort Myers; FL; November 2009
• Connoisseur cruise aboard the Grand Princess; September 2009
• Solo cruise aboard the Disney Magic; June 2009
• Solo cruise aboard the Caribbean Princess; January 2009
• Abbacina Gallery, Venice, FL; March 2008
• Solo cruise, Sun Princess; June 2007
• Lake County Museum of Arts, Lake Eustis, FL; November, 2006
• La Habra, California Art Museum; August, 2005
• Jeanne La Rae Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA; August 2002
• Dreaming of Catopia, Jeanne La Ray Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA; September 2001
• Art Gallery, Laguna Nigeul, CA; June 2001
• SOHO LA GALLERY, Los Angeles, CA; August 2000

Eydel has only scratched the surface of her creative elan. She is already planning to venture into sculpture, art jewelry and art couture. “I’m planning on starting a line of wearable art, such as jewelry and dresses.” When looking to the future, she envisions “museum shows around the country, and ultimately, I want to share my idea of balance, considering everything, especially nature and technology.”

Her immediate plans, however, include exhibiting at Art Miami in December during Art Basel and participating in the Artists’ Studio Tour planned by the Patty & Jay Baker Naples Museum of Art for March 3-4, 2013. She was represented in 2012 by Prominent Gallery at ArtNaples Contemporary Art Fair and Art Sarasota, and also hopes to participate in both of those international are fairs in 2013 as well.

Fast Facts.

• Many historians believe that Los Angeles Dodgers Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke exchanged the very first high five. It happened on October 2, 1977 in Dodger Stadium. It was the last day of the regular season, and Dodgers leftfielder Dusty Baker had just gone deep off the Astros’ J.R. Richard. It was Baker’s 30th home run, making the Dodgers the first team in history to have four sluggers — Baker, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and Reggie Smith — with at least 30 homers each. It was a wild, triumphant moment and a good omen as the Dodgers headed to the playoffs. Burke, waiting on deck, thrust his hand enthusiastically over his head to greet his friend at the plate. Baker, not knowing what to do, smacked it. After retiring from baseball, Burke (who was one of the first openly “out” homosexual professional athletes) used the high five with other homosexual residents of the Castro district of San Francisco, where for many it became a symbol of gay pride and identification.
• Another story places the origin of the high five at a University of Louisville Cardinals basketball practice during the 1978-79 season. Forward Wiley Brown went to give a plain old low five to his teammate Derek Smith, but suddenly Smith looked Brown in the eye and said, “No. Up high.” Brown thought, “yeah, why are we staying down low? We jump so high,” raised his hand and the high five was supposedly born. High fives can be seen in highlight reels of the 1978-79 Louisville team. During a telecast of a 1980 game, announcer Al McGuire shouted: “Mr. Brown came to play! And they’re giving him the high-five handshake. High five!”
• Alina’s cruise to Tahiti produced a second benefit. “I am inspired by different cultures,” explains Eydel, who travels extensively. “The colors, the environment of Tahiti was very inspiring and resulted in a huge series for me called The Essence of the Tahitian Black Pearl.”
• High Five is not the first artwork that Eydel has given to an educational or charitable organization. “I donate to the Make-A-Wish Foundations and various local charities, such as Arts for ACT in Fort Myers. I think I’m pretty blessed with lots of good things, so I feel I have to give back to the community and to those who ask,” said Eydel.
• Swarovski crystals are precision-cut glass which is made by a company based out of Wattens, Austria by the name of Swarovski AG.

Related Articles and Links.

• Naples Museum’s 18th Annual Artists’ Studio Tour happens March 3 and 4 (02-15-13)
• Local art phenom Alina Eydel exhibiting at 7th Annual Coconut Point Art Festival (02-09-13)
• FGCU grad Alina Eydel building impressive portfolio of art and accomplishments (06-26-12)
• Celebratory painting ‘High Five’ is gift to FGCU from BFA graduate Alina Eydel (06-24-12)
• The mosaics on canvas of FGCU grad Alina Eydel (06-24-12)
• Alina Eydel paintings are hidden gems of Art Naples Contemporary Art Fair (03-26-12)

On the north side of Whitaker Hall is a gently curving wire archway that rests on two jungle green four-legged stanchions. Writing for FGCU’s Pinnacle magazine, Nancy Stetson penned an apt simile to describe the piece. “[It] looks as if Buckminster Fuller created a giant blue Slinky, incorporating pieces of colored glass, tile and seashells,” she jots, going on to explain that “when the sun hits it at a certain angle, [the glass, tiles and seashells] create colored reflections on the sidewalk:  raspberry, orange and cobalt blue.” Mesh basket-like seating at the base of each column is reminiscent of a volleyball or basketball net, subtly echoing the playground atmosphere of the work.

Appropriately titled Archway, the artwork is the product of renowned sculptor Brower Hatcher. For the mesh, the sculptor employed his favorite color. “They call it Brower blue,” says Hatcher. “Blue works particularly well because as a color it’s quite transparent. Certainly against the sky, it almost absorbs light.” That allows the metal frame to almost disappear so that the reflective objects attached to the frame and dangling inside are free to make the whole piece sparkle.

Archway is actually an arch within an arch, a huge web of interconnectedness that serves as a metaphor for the world in which we live today. More, it is meant to encourage interconnection – between students, faculty and everyone else who has business on any given day in Whitaker Hall. You see, Hatcher prides himself on involving and enveloping viewers within his public artworks.

Archway was intended as a focal point at which people would congregate to meet, talk and laugh. “Just as the Eiffel Tower or the Fountains in Rome [are] symbolic centers in their respective cities, so [are] Brower’s sculptures in his,” proclaims Leslie Park, Hatcher’s former sculpture assistant. “It becomes a place of interaction … A sense of place, an identity, and a corridor for interconnection is born.”

Regrettably, the University thwarted this aspect of the sculpture by moving it from its original location. Hatcher designed Archway to span a portion of the sidewalk that connects Academic Building 3 and Fletcher Hall. “Funds from the construction of both buildings were combined to commission the piece, and the sculpture was placed halfway between each building,” relates Morgan Paine, Chief of the Department of Theatre & Visual Arts. “But several students apparently walked into [the stanchions], and there was a concern that it might be a hazard to the visually impaired, so [Dr.] Joe Shepard [FGCU's Vice President for Administrative Services and Finance at the time] had it moved.”

But apparently Dr. Shepard consulted with neither the art department nor the sculptor when choosing Archway‘s new location. Instead of turning the sculpture so that it ran parallel with the sidewalk, Dr. Shepard simply placed Archway adjacent to the walkway that runs alongside Whitaker Hall. “Foot traffic there has expanded since the engineering and business buildings have been added to the courtyard,” Morgan Paine notes, but viewers must now go out of their way in order to interact with the sculpture. Moreover, the the sunlight at Archway‘s present location is less intense, spoiling the light show described above by journalist Nancy Stetson.

It’s possible that Archway could move yet again.  There are plans to renovate the long corridor that runs between the buildings from Lutgert to Griffin and Reed Halls. “There was supposed to be a water feature that ran the length of the corridor,” Paine discloses. If it’s added to FGCU’s long interior mall, Archway may yet find a home where it can occupy a “place of interaction,” one that more effectively conveys and establishes a venue for interconnection between students, faculty and University visitors and guests.

About Brower Hatcher

Brower Hatcher was born in Atlanta, Georgia.  He attended Vanderbilt University School of Engineering in Nashville, Tennessee but received his degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in New York.  He then jumped across the pond to study sculpture at St. Martins School of Art in London, U.K. with Sir Anthony Caro and William Tucker.  He served on the faculty at St. Martins for several years before returning to the U.S. to join the faculty of Bennington College. He taught there for 13 years before retiring in 1986. Since that time, he has built approximately 50 public art projects throughout the United States (see below).

Brower Hatcher is a recipient of 3 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship and an honorary Ph.D. from the State University of New York.  As the Artistic Director of Mid-Ocean Studio, he works at the historic steel yard in Providence, Rhode Island not far from his home on Block Island. Hatcher also maintains a residence in New York City, New York.

Public Sculpture Commissions

Hatcher’s career in public art goes back to 1972, when he began work on a series of steel sculptures that incorporated domed roofs. A cross between sophisticated puzzles for the mind and visionary architecture, his stainless-steel mesh structures seem both high tech and whimsical, filled with floating objects such as turtles, tables, chairs, ladders, numbers, letters and books.

For example, Prophecy of the Ancients (left, commissioned for the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden) consists of a futuristic wire mesh dome resting on six classical columns. An assortment of disparate objects that suggest cultures both past and present are suspended within the structure of the steel dome. The dome itself suggests complex constellations or a visual model of space, and provides an environment for meditation and thought.

In addition to his domed pieces, Hatcher’s monumental sculptural installations include gateways, suspended works, performance spaces, interactive water features, lighting, paving patterns and street furniture. “Inspired by the natural world, my sculptures are typically stainless steel cellular matrixes built from multi-layered and multi-colored geometric frameworks,” Hatcher explains. “These matrixes often contain various combinations of embedded artifacts, glass, ceramics, metal and LED lighting relating to a site’s mission, history, and influences, resulting in landmark public art that enhances the sense of community and place.”

Hatcher’s public sculpture commissions include:

• 2012     Gateway of the Open Book, Downtown Greenway SW Cornerstone, Action Greensboro, Greensboro, NC  ($145,000; excludes site work & lighting, supplied by client)
• 2012     Jazz Man, Howard Theatre, Howard Theatre Restoration, Washington DC  ($102,500)
• 2011     The Simulation of George Karrer’s Workshop, Karrer Barn Property, Dublin, OH  ($150,000)
• 2011     The Mapping of Systems, 3630 Peachtree, Atlanta, GA  ($150,000)
• 2010     Bear, Stuart Park, City of Kelowna, BC, Canada  ($188,000 (CDN))
• 2009     Untitled, Pacific Avenue Roundabouts, City of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA awarded/for 2013 installation  ($200,000)
• 2009     Showing the Way: The Tillie K. Fowler Memorial, Jacksonville River Walk, Cultural Council for Greater Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL  ($172,000)
• 2008     Gravity Wave, Trafton Science Center, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN  ($90,000)
• 2007     Event Horizon, A5/A483 Chirk, Landmark Wales, Chirk, Wales, UK  ($1,5oo,ooo; competition winner/project unbuilt)
• 2007     Solar Path (right), Sheldon Lake at City Park, City of Ft. Collins, Ft. Collins, CO  ($65,000)
• 2006     Blue Spring, Blue Springs Hwy 7 Corridor Project, City of Blue Springs, Blue Springs, MO  ($100,000, excludes engineering & lighting, supplied by client)
• 2006     Linear Accelerator (right), University & Big Bend Station, St. Louis Metro, St. Louis, MO  ($140,000)
• 2006     Beacon, New Castle County Courthouse, Art Committee for the NCCCH, Wilmington, DE ($500,000)
• 2006     Cycle, Administration Building, St. Lucie County Cultural Affairs, Ft. Pierce, FL  ($75,000)
• 2006     Wellspring & Oculus, Bayliss Park, City of CB/Iowa West Foundation, Council Bluffs, IA  ($750,000)
• 2006     Source, Lemon Ave. Plaza, City of Sarasota, Sarasota, FL  ($125,000)
• 2006    Archway, Florida Gulf Coast University Green, Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers, FL  ($65,000)
• 2005     Solar Path II, Spectacle Island, UrbanArts Institute, Boston, MA construction/installation depend on funds  ($125,000)
• 2004     Coastal Current, EpiCenter, Pinellas County Arts Council, Clearwater, FL  ($85,000)
• 2004     Crucible, EH & S Building, Iowa State University, Ames, IA  ($50,000, excluding foundation, base & lighting, supplied by client)
• 2003     Unification of Diversity, Ann & Alvin Rogel Chapel, Robert Morris University, Pittsburgh, PA  ($22,000)
• 2003     Turbulent Stream, Toney Anaya Building, New Mexico Arts, Santa Fe, NM  ($150,000)
• 2003     Ancient Concept, Target Corporation Headquarters, Target Corp., Minneapolis, MN  ($50,000)
• 2002     Cultural Tapestry, District #1 Police Station, Dept. of Culture & Film, Denver, CO  ($85,000)
• 2002     Starman Plaza & Vortex, Wills Eye Hospital, Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, PA  ($450,000)
• 2002     Union of Matter and Space, Drury University, Drury University, Springfield, MO  ($50,000)
• 2001     Passage, Columbus State Community College, CSCC, Columbus, OH  ($750,000)
• 2001     Brainstorm, ADC Telecommunications Headquarters, ADC Telecom, Eden Prairie, MN  ($220,000)
• 2000    Radial Light, Fidelity Investments, Fidelity Investments, Smithfield, RI  ($50,000)
• 1996     Scattering Light, Dain Bosworth Corp., Dain Bosworth, Minneapolis, MN   ($40,000)
• 1995     Forum of Origin, State Street, City of Madison, Madison, WI  ($75,000, excluding columns and foundation, supplied by client)
• 1995     El Arbol de Esperanza, Thomas Jefferson Park, NY Dept. of Cultural Affairs, New York, NY  ($50,000)
• 1994     Edge of Sky, Allen Center, Allen Center Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Houston, TX  ($100,000)
• 1994     Sky Web, Northwest Airlines Sky Lounge, Northwest Airlines, Minneapolis, MN  ($25,000)
• 1994     Global Apex, St. Paul Companies Global Headquarters, St. Paul Companies, St. Paul, MN  ($100,000)
• 1993     Sanctuary, Lloyd Noland Hospital, Lloyd Noland Hospital, Birmingham, AL ($120,000)
• 1993     Sanctuary of the Guardians, Administration Building, Pinellas County Arts Council, Largo, FL ($100,000)
• 1993     Layering of Worlds, Herberger Theater, Herberger Theater Center, Phoenix, AZ ($120,000)
• 1990     Starman in the Ancient Garden, Wills Eye Hospital, Redevelopment Authority, Philadelphia, PA  ($210,000)
• 1986     The Principle of Justice, Municipal Courthouse, Roanoke Valley Arts Council, Roanoke, VA  ($100,000)
• 1984     Adirondack Guide Monument, State University of New York, SUNY, Plattsburg, NY  ($50,000)
• 1983     Language of Whales, Battery Park (temporary), Creative Time, New York, NY  ($25,000)

Located at the entry to Florida Gulf Coast University’s courtyard is a formed and fabricated steel sculpture called Cross Currents. It soars 21 feet and ten inches into the brilliant southwest Florida sky. At first glance, you might think this 8 x 12 foot wide, 17, 000-pound structure is just a jumble of colorful shapes. But as you stare, the serrated teeth of an open-mouthed alligator, shards of sunlight, the fringe of palm fronds and the rough silhouette of a palm trunk slowly emerge from this abstract, modernist piece.

The sculpture is the work of world-renowned artist Albert Paley, the first metal sculptor to ever receive the coveted the AIA Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest honor awarded by the American Institute of Architects to a non-architect. “The allure of Paley’s art comes though its intrinsic sense of integration of art and architecture,” one noted architect has stated, and that is certainly true of Cross Currents, a work Paley completed in 2001.

Paley not only employed an expressionist style in his sculpture’s design, he repeated that theme as he hand-painted Cross Current‘s component pieces in bright Florida colors: flamingo pink, sky blue and the yellows, reds and oranges associated with the Gulf Coast’s colorful sunsets. “He applied two coats of UV protection,” notes FGCU Associate Arts Professor Morgan T. Paine. But the colors have nevertheless faded under the merciless onslaught of southwest Florida’s near-equatorial sun. “The colors are not as vibrant as they were when the sculpture first arrived on the FGCU campus,” Paine observes with obvious regret. “We’re trying to figure out whether we can strip off the existing UV coats and buff out the colors embedded in the metal.” If not, it will be challenging to restore Cross Currents‘ vitality while yet preserving Paley’s painterly expressionist style.

Perhaps the artist will have his own ideas about how to conserve the piece without compromising its integrity. Paley is known to visit southwest Florida frequently, although he has only seen Cross Currents once since it was installed on the Florida Gulf Coast University campus in 2001. Cross Currents is part of the Florida Art in Public Buildings program, an initiative started in 1979 pursuant to section 255.043 of the Florida Statutes, which earmarks 0ne-half of one percent of the amount the legislature appropriates for the construction of state buildings for the acquisition of public artworks.

Why Albert Paley

It was truly remarkable for Florida Gulf Coast University to attract a monumental artist of Albert Paley’s credentials, accomplishments and reputation. But he was not simply given the commission. Paley’s name was placed in nomination by Karl H. Hollander, the executive director of the Lee County Alliance for the Arts at the time. A sculptor himself, Hollander was familiar with Paley’s body of work, especially gates he made for the Patty & Jay Naples Museum of Art and bronze ribbon handles he crafted for the lobby doors of the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts (see below).

Paley submitted a maquette for the consideration of the 5-member selection committee, which consisted of two members of the arts committee, an architect, a representative of the building where the public artwork would be installed and a representative of the FGCU president’s office. Paley’s design edged out those submitted by two other renowned finalists, Bruce White and David Black (who recently installed Fire Dance in Centennial Park, the most recent addition to the City of Fort Myers public art collection).

Paley originally designed Cross Currents to go in the mall between the library and Reed Hall. However, a controversy ensued regarding that location, which was not resolved until Paley hopped a plane to Fort Myers so that he could meet personally with FGCU President, Dr. William Merwin. “Paley walked the campus with Dr. Merwin,” recalls FGCU Associate Professor of Arts Morgan T. Paine, “and the two finally agreed that the sculpture would be placed at the east entrance to the campus even though it was designed to be surrounded by greenery instead of being sandwiched between two buildings.” As a result, Cross Currents installed in the mall between Howard Hall and McTarnaghan Hall on the eastern entry to the long courtyard that spans the center of the FGCU campus.

Other Paley Public Artworks in Southwest Florida

Southwest Florida has four other of Paley’s monumental works:

• Completed in 2009, Naiad graces the entrance of the St. Tropez and Beau Rivage condominium complexes. Now part of the City of Fort Myers’ public art collection, the sculpture was originally commissioned by Riviera Development Group, which opted to install its own public artwork rather than make a cash donation to the city’s public art fund. The metal sculpture stands on a stuccoed, raised circular pedestal set in the center of a bricked turnaround at the front entrance of the St. Tropez, which is located at 2745 First Street. Naiad’s color scheme matches and complements the yellow over-and-white over salmon of the condominiums that tower high above it.
• At the gray marble entry to the Patty & Jay Baker Naples Museum of Art stand The Paley Gates, an exceptional example of the unique portals, passageways and thresholds long associated with the art of Albert Paley. The gates are 16 feet tall by 10 feet wide, although only the bottom half swing open to admit visitors into the courtyard leading to the museum. Endowed by Michael and Deborah Stephens, the steel, bronze and stainless steel gates were installed in 2000.
• Paley also created ornate handles for the lobby doors of the Philharmonic Center for the Arts. Known for his inventive and novel approach to both metalsmithing and jewelry design, Paley cut the Phil’s door handles in the form of a bronze ribbon that both commemorates events at the Center and suggests an experience in time. A fallen piece of ribbon or banner is a recurring theme in the sculptures Paley crafts as rites of passages for visitors entering a building.

More about Albert Paley

Over the past three decades, Albert Paley has created monumental site-specific metal assemblages that place him not only in the forefront of contemporary sculpture, but in the vanguard among artists working in the new, genre-defying area that has been called “Archisculpture.” Paley goes beyond creating sculptures that stand as isolated works of art. His sculptures enhance the spaces in which they are placed and, in return, are enhanced by those spaces. He has established himself as an artist who constantly pushes boundaries, questions old categories and redefines himself in his own distinctive idiom, at once visionary and persuasively tangible.

Commissioned by both public institutions and private corporations, Paley has completed more than 50 site-specific works (see below). Some notable examples are the Portal Gates for the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., Synergy, a ceremonial archway in Philadelphia, the Portal Gates for the New York State Senate Chambers in Albany, Sentinel, a monumental plaza sculpture for Rochester Institute of Technology, as well as a 65-foot sculpture for the entry court of Bausch and Lomb’s headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. Recently completed works include three sculptures for the National Harbor development near Washington D.C., a 130’ long archway named Animals Always for the St. Louis Zoo, a gate for the Cleveland Botanical Gardens in Cleveland, Ohio, a sculptural relief for Wellington Place, Toronto, Canada, a sculpture named Threshold for the Corporate Headquarters of Klein Steel, Rochester, N.Y., and a ceremonial entranceway called Transformation for Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Pieces by Albert Paley can be found in the permanent collections of many major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Broadly published and an international lecturer, Paley received both his BFA and MFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Rochester in 1989, the State University of New York at Brockport in 1996, and St. Lawrence University, in Canton, New York in 1997. He also holds an endowed chair at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Comprehenvise List of Paley Monumental Sculptures

The following is a comprehensive list of Albert Paley’s most important monumental works:

• 1974: Gates Portal, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC
• 1976: Hunter Fence, Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga (Tennessee)
• 1980: Portal Gates, New York State Chambers in Albany (New York)
• 1981: Push Plate, Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
• 1984: Conclave, State University of New York at Brockport (New York)
• 1987: Synergy, Ceremonial Archway in Philadelphia
• 1989: Main Street Bridge Railing, Rochester Bridge in Rochester
• 1990: Aurora, Roanoke Airport in Roanoke (Virginia)
• 1990: Olympia, AT & T Promenade II in Atlanta ( Georgia )
• 1991: Moment, Peter Kiewit Foundation Sculpture Garden of the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha (Nebraska)
• 1991: Ceremonial Gate, Arizona State University in Phoenix (Arizona)
• 1995: Passage, U.S. Federal Building in Ashville (North Carolina)
• 1996: Genesee Passage, Bausch & Lomb in Rochester HQ
• 1996: Apollo, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln (Massachusetts)
• 1997: Gnomon, Ohio State University in Columbus (Ohio)
• 1998: Symbion, University of Toledo in Toledo (Ohio)
• 1998: Horizon, Adobe Systems Inc.. in San Jose (California)
• 1999: Stadium Gates, Forida State University in Tallahassee
• 2000: Portal Gates, Naples Museum of Art in Naples (Florida)
• 2002: Constellation ( relief ), Wellington Place in Toronto (Canada)
• 2003: Sentinel, Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester
• 2004: Kohl Gate, Cleveland Botanical Gardens in Ohio
• 2005: Gates Memphis, Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis (Tennessee)
• 2006: Threshold, Klein Steel Service in Rochester
• 2006: Animals Always, St. Louis Zoo in Saint Louis (Missouri)
• 2007: Gate, Washington National Cathedral in Washington DC
• 2008: Village of Hope in Tustin (California)
• 2009: Evanesce, sculpture trail Escultórica Ruta del Cemento y del Acero in Monterrey (Mexico)
• 2009: “Clay Center” Charleston WV
• 2009: Naiad, St. Tropez and Beau Rivage Condominiums, Fort Myers, FL

N.Y.C. Park Avenue Project

On June 29, 2013, Paley unveiled his latest sculpture project, the installation of not one, but 13 separate sculptures at various sites along Manhattan’s prestigious Park Avenue. “There can be few exhibition platforms in the world to equal the distinction, visibility and excitement of Park Avenue,” acknowledged Paley about the high profile outdoor exhibition, which runs through November 8, 2013.

“With this series of sculptures created especially for Park Avenue, [Albert Paley] firmly places his work and himself in the center of Manhattan,” states Patterson Sims, independent curator and member of the Sculpture Advisory Committee of The Fund for Park Avenue’s Temporary Public Art Collection, which arranged the exhibition. “With an ambition seldom matched in the series of Park Avenue sculpture installations, Paley has created a new body of work that celebrates the city and the site’s energy and takes his own fusion of delicacy, complexity, and monumentality to new heights.”

The Committee told Paley he could have all of Park Avenue, but he elected to consolidate the 13 sculptures he created for the exhibition between 52nd and 67th Streets because this area represents “the spectrum from the financial district, where the sculptures are bolder, through a residential area, where the sculptures are more detailed and intimate.”

Although technically not site-specific, each sculpture has been strategically placed where its scale, proportion, color and composition best reflects the style and architecture of the surrounding buildings and the nature and volume of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. For example, the Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue demanded a horizontal sculpture that accentuates the building’s open plazas. A horizontal piece was also used in between 51st and 52nd to provide contrast with the vertical Byzantine lines of Bertram Goodhue’s Saint Bartholomew’s Church. By contrast, the wide intersection at 57th and Park required a pair of tall vertical sculptures to draw attention to the scale, vibrancy and frenetic energy that typify that section of Park Avenue.

For each piece he created, Paley followed a rigorous planning process that began with the creation of an abundance of preliminary sketches and photographic renditions depicting how he expected each piece to interact with its adjoining site.  The sketches were then translated into cardboard models called maquettes, which were subsequently replaced by 4-foot steel models that served as blueprints for fabrication of the thirteen pieces. In total, it took Paley and his team 14 months to fabricate the 750 separate pieces of metal weighing nearly 54 tons into the final sculptures. The completed pieces range in weight from 2.5 to 7.5 tons and in height from 10′ (Composed Presence) to 21 feet (Encore), with the longest (Progression) measuring more than 44 feet in length. Ironically, it took less time to install the completed sculptures on site (roughly 25 minutes each) than it took for the 10 flatbeds to travel the distance between Paley’s studios in Rochester and Park Avenue.

“So far, private collectors and museums have acquired 8 of the 13 sculptures,” advises Paley Studios Director Jennifer Laemlein. When the exhibition ends in November, the pieces that have been sold will be delivered to their purchasers. The others will be returned to Rochester, though it’s hard to imagine that any will be unspoken for by the time “Paley on Park Avenue” comes to an end.

The 13 sculptures and their locations include:

• Progression, formed and fabricated painted steel, 9’4″ x 44’4.25″ x 4′; 52nd and Park;
• Between the Shadows, formed and fabricated painted and weathering steel, 18’5″ x 8’5″ dia.; 53rd and Park;
• Reflection, formed and fabricated painted steel, 18’9″ x 5’5″ x 5’2.5″; 54th and Park;
• Encore, formed and fabricated stainless and weathering steel, 20’11″ x 8’2″ x 6’2.4″, 57th and Park;
• Jester, formed and fabricated painted steel, 18’9″ x 9′ x 7′; 57th and Park;
• Counter Balance, formed and fabricated weathering steel, 18’4″ x 11′ x 8’6″; 58th and Park;
• Variance, formed and fabricated painted steel, 16’11″ x 12’10.5″ x 5’2″; 59th and Park;
• Titled Column, formed and fabricated weathering steel, 19’10″ x 9’5″ x 7’11″; 60th and Park;
• Cloaked Intention, formed and fabricated weathering steel, 19’8″ x 8’7″; 61st and Park;
• Ambiguous Response, formed and fabricated weathering steel, 20’6″ x 6’8″ x 7’2″; 61st and Park;
• Composed Presence, formed and fabricated painted steel, 10′ x 13’6.5″ x 6’10″; 64th and Park;
• Languorous Repose, formed and fabricated painted steel, 14’8″ x 8’7.5″ x 5’9.75″; 66th and Park; and
• Envious Composure, formed and fabricated painted steel, 18’3″ x 7’6″ x 7′; 67th and Park.

Related Articles and Links.

Vote Yes! for Harness Racing is a 2010 batik and mixed media painting on silk that resides in Conference Room 309 in Academic Building 5 at Florida Gulf Coast University. It was purchased in 2011 with funds provided by the Florida Art in Public Buildings program, an initiative started in 1979 pursuant to section 255.043 of the Florida Statutes which earmarks 0ne-half of one percent of the amount the legislature appropriates for the construction of state buildings for the acquisition of public artworks.

The painting was created by Naples artist Muffy Clark Gill, an award-winning mixed media artist who works in the ancient, process-oriented technique of batik. Vote Yes! for Harness Racing is from her “Florida Indian Tribe” series, which she began in 1990.

The series is grounded in painstaking research into copious historical documents, photographs, newspaper clippings, postcards and oral histories of the life and work of Florida’s earliest settlers, the Seminole and Miccosukee Indians. Informed by a wealth of intriguing historic data and back stories, the series affords viewers a fresh historical perspective into the two Indian tribes that continue to inhabit and impact south Florida, preserving and interpreting their folklore in a new and refreshing way.

This painting is derived from a photograph that was taken in October, 1929 by Gleason Waite Romer that is now a part of the Miami-Dade Public Library Romer Collection. ”I was drawn to the image because of the smarmy woman trying to influence these Seminole men to sign her voting petition,” Gill reveals. “I’m not sure that they even knew what they were signing, but it was interesting to see the contrast between her modern black and white outfit with stiletto heels in comparison to the bright colors worn by the Seminole men and also showing some of the men bare footed while wearing modern attire.”

Gill presents the work in the style of a vintage 1910-1930 shirt popular among Seminole men. With fabricated patchwork “sleeves” extending on either side of a central panel, the painting measures 36 inches tall by 72 inches wide.

About Muffy Clark Gill

During a career spanning more than two decades, Muffy Clark Gill has enjoyed 21 solo exhibitions (including shows at such prestigious venues as the Marco Island Historical Museum, Wirtz Gallery in the First National Bank of of South Miami, Falciglia Gallery at International College, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and the Art Lab at Florida Gulf Coast University) and been included in 66 state, regional and national juried and invitational exhibitions and festivals throughout Florida. The latter have produced more than 45 individual awards, including Best in Show, merit and purchase awards conferred by internationally-renowned professionals in the contemporary art field such as Diane Cambier, Bonnie Clearwater, Elaine Gustafson, Donald Kuspit, Ned Rifkin, Faith Ringgold and Daniel Stetson.

Gill’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Collier County Museum, Golisano Children’s Museum of Naples and Museum of the Everglades, as well as numerous private and corporate collections including those maintained by Whole Foods, Northern Trust Bank and Lely Development Corporation. Her work has been reviewed in The Naples Daily News, Fort Myers News Press, Gulfshore Life Magazine, Bonita Living Magazine, The Journal of Surface Design Association and WGCU Public Media’s Expressions Magazine. In 2001, Gill was featured in the book Batik for Artists and Quilters by Eloise Piper (Hand Books Press) and in 1997, she received national recognition when her work was selected for the Top 100 National Arts for the Parks competition, a national traveling exhibition.

To date, Gill has had two works purchased through the Florida Art in Public Buildings Program, Vote Yes for Harness Racing and another for the Volusia County Courthouse in Deland.

Originally from Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, Muffy Clark Gill received her B.F.A. in Graphic Design from Boston University. She also completed the commercial art program at Morris County, New Jersey and classes at the DeCordova Museum School in Lincoln, Massachusetts. She lives with her husband, Warren, and their black and white Scotch dogs and three cats on a fruit farm in Naples.

[N.B.: Photos above right and above left depict Gill explaining batik process to members of the Florida Association of Public Art Professionals during their tour on May 4, 2012 of the FGCU public art collection. Photo on lower right shows Gill with art consultant and former Naples Art Association Executive Director Barbara Hill at the 26th Annual All Florida Show at the Alliance for the Arts on June 1, 2012, where Gill exhibited a painting based on a 1929 photograph of the Goodyear blimp flying over Opa Locha Florida from the Romer Collection.]

About Batik and Rozome

Batik or rozome is an ancient wax-and-dye resist process. It is a time-intensive, process-oriented technique in which the artist painstakingly hand paints images onto a cotton, rayon, silk or other fabric using hot wax and cold water dyes. The wax is then ironed off, with the completed painting then being stretched and framed or displayed as a wall hanging.

The first step in the process involves selecting the subject or photograph that Gill wants to portray in the central panel of her painting. Gill renders a line drawing either free hand or using Photoshop that she transfers to the fabric she is using “by hand to act as a road map to see where I will be waxing.” Here, Gill is has chosen an image from the Florida Memory Collection taken in late 1930 or early 1931 of the inaugural flight of a Pan American Airways flying clipper plane at  Dinner Key in Miami.

Once the drawing is done, Gill transfers the image onto her fabric using a light table to help her trace the image onto her working surface. Gill then paints hot wax (the yellow-orange portions of the photo to the right) onto the fabric everywhere she wants white to appear in the finished work. That done, Gill then begins to slowly apply color using cold water dyes, waxing over each color to preserve it until she is ready to apply an overlay of the next, darker color.

The photograph to the left shows the painting after Gill has added blue dye for the sky and water. (Notice her wax pan and tools on the right). The image of the plane and Seminole Indians attending the event are beginning to emerge, as is the floating barge that was later replaced by a permanent terminal that ultimately became Miami City Hall.

The painting process “is very complex, due to the number of color combinations and waxings that must be done in order to accomplish getting the information in front of me to look like what I have envisioned,” Gill notes. She works from light to dark, trying to bring out as many details as she can, dying and waxing in successive applications.

Once all the colors have been set, Gill “waxes out.” This involves placing  sheets of newsprint over successive portions of the image, allowing the wax to absorb into the newsprint.  ”I am often asked, ‘How long does it take for you to create one of these paintings,’” Gill reports. “I actually loose track after a while,” but in most cases, it takes more than 30 hours to complete one painting, and “this does not count the drying time between each layer of wax and dye.”

Once the entire painting has been completely waxed, Gill then irons the wax out and sends the fabric to be dry cleaned. When the painting comes back from the dry cleaners, it is ready for its patchwork sleeves to be sewn on. Then the painting is ready to be mounted on acrylic rods and hung, whether in the artist’s studio or at an exhibition of her work.

The preceding images show the development of a 2012 painting that Gill has titled NC-80V. It measures 27 by 61 inches, and will be included in The 20th Century Seminole Experience: Paintings from the Florida Indian Tribes Series, a solo exhibition of Gill’s work by the Marco Island Historical Museum taking place October 2 through December 27, 2012.

Related Articles.

• FLOR500 ‘Native Wildflower Art Exhibition’ opens March 4 at S. Regional Library (02-27-13)
• Naples Museum’s 18th Annual Artists’ Studio Tour happens March 3 and 4 (02-15-13)
• Muffy Clark Gill is FGCU public artist with well-established pedigree (09-26-12)
• ‘Vote Yes! for Harness Racing’ part of FGCU public art collection (09-24-12)
• Muffy Clark Gill ‘Indian Tribe’ batiks to be exhibited by Marco Historical Museum (09-22-12)

Verve is a public art commission tentatively scheduled for installation in Florida Gulf Coast University’s Marieb Hall this December. Natick, Massachusetts sculptor Michele Gutlove was selected for the $61,000 commission, which is funded by the Florida Art in Public Buildings program, an initiative started in 1979 pursuant to section 255.043 of the Florida Statutes that earmarks one-half of one percent of the amount the legislature appropriates for the construction of state buildings for the acquisition of public artworks.

The hanging fused glass sculpture will grace the lobby atrium of Marieb Hall, a recently completed Health Sciences building. “The artwork will be made of handmade sculptural glass and be suspended on stainless steel cables and a custom crafted aluminum truss,” reports News Briefs, the monthly online newsletter of the Florida Association of Public Art Professionals. “The subject of this proposed work is based on the representation of neurons and dendrites and relates to the celebration of human communication.”

“The artwork will illuminate the university’s mission by celebrating and inspiring connections students are making with each other and with their own potential,” Gutlove notes. “Although human brain cells are the seeds of my inspiration for this piece, viewers will discover other imagery as they view the sculpture over time. My concept is that students will make their own connections, and the art will inspire curiosity, exploration and education.”

While public art delivers myriad benefits, one of its chief functions is to engender a deeper interaction with a place by the people who visit, work and study there. Public art creates human scaling of open areas by framing the space, draws people together by inducing strangers to talk to one another, engages the faculty and student body, and adds to their visual quality of life. But good public art does more than stimulate conversation and make a space seem more welcoming. It relates to the environment in which it is located, a goal Gutlove will strive to accomplish by creating hundreds of pieces of fused glass to conjure the nuclei and dendrites of three neurons.

“Neurons are essentially the brain’s messengers, relaying messages electronically throughout the human brain and spinal chord,” Gutlove explains. “Many intricate trees of highly branched extensions called dendrites extend from the surface of each cell body and serve as receptors to collect signals from other neurons.” After light enters your eye, for example, it is turned into signals that are picked up by dendrites. Neurons carry these signals almost instantaneously to various parts of the brain, prompting your eyelids to squint, the muscles in your hand and arm to catch a ball, or more neurons to create new signals that send inklings of thought darting through your brain.

The glass that Gutlove will use to create her nuclei and rangy dendrites will appear both clear and colorful as it scatters the light which floods Marieb Hall’s atrium and casts dynamic, colorful reflections and refractions on the walls, floor and ceiling. Images of Michele Gutlove’s other public art pieces can be viewed at www.studiogh.com.

Materials, Dimension and Weight

• Each nucleus will consist of between 18 and 24 pieces of fused glass.
• There will be 110-140 dendrites.
• The nuclei and dendrites will be hung by stainless steel cables from two slightly serpentine trusses.
• The truss will be hung with clamps from the bottom cord of the steel beam that supports Marieb Hall’s third floor.
• The entire sculpture will weigh just 156 pounds.
• The sculpture requires minimal maintenance. “About once every year or two, it will need a light dusting.”
• Marieb Hall houses the College of Health Sciences.
• Florida Gulf Coast University is located at 10501 FGCU Blvd. South, Fort Myers, FL 33965.

A Word About Michele Gutlove

Michele Gutlove has been working in glass for the last 16 years. Her formal education, however, is in architecture and years of architectural practice provides her with a strong foundation in structural engineering, solar energy and day lighting, as well as art history and painting. It also inspires her to utilize a collaborative design process involving individual clients and client groups.

“I understand the creation of large-scaled spaces, the value of attention to detail and, of course, building codes. As an architect, I have managed teams of designers and engineers on multi-million dollar projects for institutional and commercial clients as well as self-performed design and fabrication for smaller projects.” As a painter, Gutlove possesses a passion for the interplay of color and light, and she employs her abilities and experience as an architectural renderer to communicate design intent to her glass art clients. “As a glass artist working with kiln-formed glass to create glass art installations, I celebrate the opportunity to combine all of these skills.”

For exterior and unprotected environments, Gutlove works with polycarbonate, and for other individual projects, she routinely works with glass temperers, safety laminators, mirror silverers, lighting consultants, aluminum and steel fabricators and other trades. “However, I personally shape and fire every piece of glass to assure conformance with design intent and quality. All of my art projects have been delivered and installed in accordance with my clients’ schedule requirements including integration into on-going construction timelines.

Michele has public art installations in:

• Gainesville, FL – Elemental Energy (a suspended glass sculpture depicting flames, sparks and water commissioned by the Gainesville Regional Utilities for the lobby of their new firefighters’ training center).
• Lauderhill, FL – Bromeliad Sunshower (a suspended glass sculpture depicting a tropical sun shower with bromeliad lilies, palm fronds, monstera deliciosa and dichroic sun and rain commissioned by the City of Lauderhill for the lobby of their new city hall).
• Cedar Rapids, IA – Emergence (a tribute in glass to transformation, installed in the new Juvenile Justice Center, in which hundreds of caterpillars emerge as dichroic glass butterflies in a forest of native wildflowers, ferns, deciduous leaves, and evergreen needles).
• Corvallis, OR – Suislaw Sunshower (impression of the Siuslaw National Forest in the atrium of the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library containing 1280 pieces of glass that represent native wildflowers, deciduous leaves and evergreen needles, pierced by the sun).
• Monmouth, OR – Bright Day (dynamic reflections, refractions and shadows from 20 pieces of hand-made glass create the illusion of a bright sunny day in Western Oregon University’s Werner Center).
• Natick, MA – Western Well – Wall of Reflection (wall of fused glass mounted on mirrors in a mikvah lobby, with deep green colors below the sea fading to blues for the Earth and sky to purples for the universe beyond).
• New Orleans, FL – Random Thoughts (an impressionistic tribute in glass to a healthy mind, made of hundreds of pieces of hand-made glass suggesting a neuron’s nucleus, axons, and dendrites).
• Salt Lake City, UT – Inklings, Musings and Notions (three triptychs depicting impressionistic neurons and dendrites, installed at the University of Utah’s new James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building).
• Springfield, MA – Aqua Luminance (a hand-formed hanging glass sculpture representing aquatic plant life growing in water towards the day-light, installed in the Daly Lobby of the Baystate Medical Center).

About Her Process

There exist three traditional methods for creating art glass. The first is referred to as cold glass, of which stained glass is the chief example. Stained glass is formed by cutting and assembling pieces of cold glass together with strips of metal caning. Hot or blown glass is formed from molten glass, which is manipulated as it cools and becomes more viscous. Fused or kiln-formed glass is formed from cold glass that is manipulated as it heats up and becomes less viscous. But whereas hot or blown glass is heated to temperatures exceeding 2100 degrees Farenheit, the temperature of fused glass never exceeds 1700 degrees, prompting some to refer to it as warm glass.

Michele Gutlove works in the medium of fused glass. “My glass art works are composed of fragments or ribbons of cut glass,” she explains. They are fired multiple times, which each being slowly annealed over a period of hours or even days depending on the size, shape and complexity of each piece. “I often layer thousands of elements of transparent, iridescent and/or dichoic glass and fuse them together at temperatures between 1450-1700 degrees Farenheit until they are fully fused into a smooth sheet.” Afterward, additional layers of glass may be “tack fused” onto the smooth sheet in a slightly cooler firing (1300-1425 degrees). “These tack-fused elements add texture, enhancing the diversity of reflections when seen from different angles.”

But she’s far from done. Gutlove then gently and slowly bends the glass into sculptural forms in yet another, even cooler (1175-1275 degree) firing. “In nature, no two neurons are exactly the same,” the artist observes. “Similarly, each of the pieces of sculptural glass that I create are unique in color and form” as each is individually hand-crafted.

Cooled to an amorphous solid, each piece of Gutlove’s sculptural glass will hold its finished shape for thousands of years. “Like our planet, each piece of glass comes from a process of immense transformative heat followed by cooling,” Michele adds. “A combination of art and science, fused glass is the ideal material for this project.”

A Word About Dichroic Coatings

Dichroic is a term that normally refers to glass that is made with tiny proportions of minutely ground metals (like gold and silver) or oxides (such as titanium, chromium, aluminum, zirconium, magnesium or silica) mixed into the glass. The suspended particles in the glass cause certain wavelengths of light to either pass through or be reflected. This causes an array of color to be displayed which shifts depending on the angle of view and the location of the sun or artificial light source.

The oldest example of dichroic glass is the Lycurgus Cup, a Roman glass cage cup that can be found in the British Museum. The cup appears red when lit from behind and green when lit from in front. As a result of this optical quality, it has been described as the most spectacular glass of the period and is the only complete Roman object made from this type of glass.

Today, dichroic glass is influenced by research carried out by NASA and its contractors, who developed it for use in dichroic filters. Dichroic filters are sometimes called color separation filters because their purpose is to separate incoming visible light into separate colors or into beams of different wavelengths. Dichroic coatings achieve this color or wavelength separation with a much higher degree of accuracy than conventional filters. Applications of dichroic filters or color separation filters include color correction and light balancing, and they are found in architectural, studio and  theatrical lighting, color TV or camcorder cameras, automated color  sorting systems, color enlargers and color projectors.

The filters and coatings are made by vaporizing metals or oxides with an electron beam in a vacuum chamber. The vapor condenses on the surface of the material in the form of uni-axially arranged crystal structures. A protective layer of quartz crystal is also sometimes added. The coating that is created is very similar to a gemstone and, by careful control of thickness, different colors may be obtained.

Another artwork located on the FGCU campus that employs dichroic coatings is Depend du Soleil by Mark T. Fuller.

Articles and Links.

Natick sculptor Michele Gutlove wins commission for next FGCU public artwork (03-11-13)

Remember 9-11 Tenth Year is a 10-by-18-foot acrylic painting depicting a bald eagle in flight against a field of bright orange and red. Beneath the eagle’s talons are lists containing the names of the more than 3,000 victims who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 in the World Trade Center twin towers in New York, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and in a barren field in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed following an attempt by passengers to regain control of the plane from four hijackers.

Matlacha Island artist Leoma Lovegrove created the work on September 11, 2011 in front of a Standing Room Only audience at an emotional event held at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. “It was a time to honor the heroes,” Lovegrove explained at the February 19, 2014 dedication in Library West. “The eagle represents the power of America and that freedom will prevail.”

Although the expressionist/impressionist painter does not characterize herself as a wildlife artist, many varieties of birds and fish have appeared in her vibrant artwork over the years. “I’ve always painted the eagle, but never one this large,” she quipped curing the ceremony. The regal bird is not only our national symbol; it also serves as FGCU’s mascot, which makes Florida Gulf Coast University a natural home for the painting.

The gift grew from a conversation Lovegrove had last year with FGCU President Wilson G. Bradshaw at a reception where the painting was displayed. “The eagle embodies a spirit of strength and freedom that we value at FGCU and instill in our students,” Bradshaw said at the dedication. “Leoma Lovegrove’s striking work of art is sure to inspire those who view it for many years to come.”

Donations of artwork, as well as monetary gifts to the university, are administered by the Florida Gulf Coast University Foundation. Remember 9-11 Tenth Year joins nearly 100 other artworks in Florida Gulf Coast University’s public art collection, which includes such notable monumental sculptures as Albert Paley’s Cross Currents, Robert Roesch’s Transition 2012, Brower Hatcher’s Archway, Depend du Soleil and Whatever You Say Dear by Mark Fuller, Clayton Swartz’s Skyward, and Verve by fused glass artist Michele Gutlove. Lovegrove also has public artworks in the collections of the City of Fort Myers and Matlacha Island.

Location

Remember 9-11 Tenth Year is on view in Library West at Florida Gulf Coast University. Hung over the library’s south entry, it towers over the reference and help desk and second floor stacks in the library’s west wing.

Remember 9-11 Tenth Year Backstory

The making of Remember 9-11 Tenth Year actually dates back to September 11, 2009. That’s when Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove  painted a 10-by-18-foot rendering of the American flag during a live performance at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre to honor those who died on the day that changed America forever. The flag was then displayed in Concourse D at Southwest Florida International Airport pursuant to a partnership between Southwest Florida International Airport and the Lee County Alliance for the Arts, which sponsors Art in Flight, a public art program designed not only to create a positive first impression on visitors, but to underscore the community’s commitment to art and culture. Covering nearly the entire wall at the top of Concourse D, it served as a somber reminder of the reason for the heightened security measures that inconvenience all and affront some outbound air passengers.

In the flag’s white field, Lovegrove emblazoned the lyrics of “God Bless America” in an attempt to resurrect the innocence and purity we lost on September 11. The red stripes signifying valor and hardiness were filled with posters extorting Americans to wake up, remember 9/11 and “never forget.” Surrounding Lovegrove’s work were  smaller canvases painted by audience members who seized the opportunity to express their own feelings about that tragic day.

Based on those experiences, the artist perceived that members of the community needed a way to personally express their pent-up and as yet unresolved emotions regarding the losses all Americans suffered that fateful day. So during a ceremony held on June 17, 2011 at the jetport, she extended an invitation to area residents and visitors to paint the names of the more than 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attacks on a 10 by 18 foot canvas that she would turn into a commemorative artwork during a ceremony taking place at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre on the tenth anniversary of the attacks.

To give as many people as possible a chance to participate in the community-wide and community-based art project, Lovegrove launched an ambitious 12-week tour during which she escorted the canvas to events at the Franklin Shops on First (during July’s Art Walk), the Red, White and Boom in Cape Coral on July 4th, Naples’ Dennison-Moran Gallery (August 7), Fox 4 Morning Blend (August 12), Iberia Bank in Cape Coral (August 12), Sam Galloway Ford in Fort Myers (August 13), The Shell Factory (August 14), Fort Myers Fire Station No. 6 on Veronica Shoemaker (August 18), Hotel Indigo in the River District (August 20), Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens in Sanibel (August 21), Sip and Send in Cape Coral (August 25 and 26), Bubba’s Roadhouse in Cape Coral and the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre on September 11th.

Each event turned out to be highly cathartic, as people shared stories and reflected on where they were that day ten years ago. “Many, many tears,” Lovegrove recalled with a hitch in her voice. “I have never seen so many.” A surprisingly large number of those who turned out lost a friend or family member in the attacks.

“Some people came with a list of names of people they’d lost,” Lovegrove related. “So the names of some of the victims have been painted on twice, but we don’t care.” And those who selected names at random from a glass bowl often forged bonds with the person whose name they chose. “They’d go home and Google the person’s name to learn more about him or her,” observed Kirsten Troyer, a friend of Lovegrove’s who volunteered to photograph many of the events.

Lovegrove had planned for the victims’ painted names to serve as backdrop for an American eagle that she would engraft over them during a Paint Out Loud performance at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre on September 11. “[But] the names became so sacred that Leoma decided she couldn’t paint over them,” Fox 4 Morning Blend’s Carley Wegner reported to the Standing Room Only crowd who attended the emotionally-charged program. “So she started a separate painting of an American eagle that’s she going to finish today.”

Thus, one flag became two, and while both paintings now stand in tribute to those who died on 9/11, the soaring eagle against a bright orange background hangs now in the library at Florida Gulf Coast University, where it will serve as a reminder of the fragility of life, heroism of those who took action that day in history, and that in spite of our too-often polarized politics, all Americans  are bound together by love of flag, country and our fellow countrymen and women. From its new home perched high above the floor of the library at FGCU, Remember 9-11 Tenth Year will inspire students for years to come to dedicate themselves to compassion, community and country.

About the Artist

Leoma Lovegrove is known for expressionist works characterized by exuberant strokes (applied to canvas not only via brushes of all sizes and shapes, but with her fingers and hands as well) and a palette bursting with vivid tropical color. While she is popularly associated with Florida motifs that include birds, fish, palms and coconuts, Lovegrove easily adapts her quasi-impressionist style to both portraiture and entertainment art.

Her subjects have included former President Jimmy Carter (who hung his portrait in his presidential library in Atlanta) and Sir Richard Branson (whose portrait was commissioned for Virgin Airlines’ headquarters in London). And while Johnny Depp and Steven Tyler remain collector favorites, her Beatles Series was so well-received that it drew the attention of the City of Liverpool.

The presidential library of George W. Bush also includes Lovegrove’s work, as do the private collections of actress Sharon Stone and actor Jesse Metcalf. To commemorate the unification of East and West Germany, Lovegrove’s work Focused was presented to the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Eva Alexandra, Countess Kenderffy. Lovegrove has garnered reviews in numerous magazines and art publications, and she was featured in February of 2012 in Galileo, a German television show that is viewed by more than 2.5 million people in five countries.

Lovegrove maintains her gallery, studios and botanical gardens on picturesque Matlacha Island, a popular tourist destination for visitors to southwest Florida. However, many art enthusiasts and collectors have become familiar with her work through her Painting Out Loud performances, during which Lovegrove completes an entire composition in a matter of minutes before a live audience to the accompaniment of inspirational music and a multi-colored light show. Her painting, Freedom, was created during such an event, as were Remember 9-11 and Remember 9-11 Tenth Year. 

On February 19, 2012, Bradenton-based Bealls Department Store introduced a line of ladies and children’s apparel that features Lovegrove’s casual, colorful Florida motifs. They were such a hit with the store’s customers that Bealls decided in 2014 to expand their line of Lovegrove products to include handbags, totes, luggage, beach towels, Tervis drinkware and more. The expanded product line is available in each of Bealls’ 74 department stores in the State of Florida, as well as online at: http://www.beallsflorida.com/online/leoma-lovegrove, which will add to the prestige that FGCU enjoys from having Remember 9-11 Tenth Year included in its public art collection.

Lovegrove has a degree in illustration from the Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota, and has studied at ArtStudy Florida and the Guild de Beaux Arts and ArtStudy Giverny in France. She returns to Europe each spring to recharge her artistic batteries by sketching, drawing and painting in the cradle of the impressionist and expressionist movements.

Related Articles and Links.

• The making of FGCU’s newest public artwork, ‘Remember 9-11 Tenth Year’ (03-11-14)
• FGCU adds Lovegrove painting to public art collection (03-10-14)
• Lovegrove ’9-11 painting being inducted today into FGCU public art collection (02-19-14)

Beacons consists of three 10-foot-high by 4-foot-wide brushed aluminum kinetic sculptures created by metal sculptor Harry McDaniel. Enabled by stainless steel ball bearings, the tops have “branches that spin in the wind.” According to the artist, the tapering upright forms of each piece are suggestive of the lighthouses that can be seen in various places along the west coast of Florida. As the top sections move in the wind, they reflect light in all directions as do the “beacons” of a lighthouse.

The grouping is located in a landscaped area near the drop-off entry circle/overhang area of Sugden Hall that is similar to a drop-off area that is found at a resort.

Beacons is part of the Florida Art in Public Buildings program, an initiative started in 1979 pursuant to section 255.043 of the Florida Statutes, which earmarks 0ne-half of one percent of the amount the legislature appropriates for the construction of state buildings for the acquisition of public artworks. It was installed in 2012 at a cost of $20,650.

The Three Beacons

The Sanibel Island Lighthouse

According to authors Yvonne Hill and Marguerite Jordan (Images of America, Sanibel Island), the Sanibel Lighthouse “was a beacon of hope” for the island’s residents and visitors alike. The lighthouse became a necessity in the last quarter of the 19th Century, as local cattlemen such as Cracker King Jake Summerlin (right), Capt. F.A. Hendry and William H. Towles shipped increasing numbers of beef stock to Havana from the deep water wharf and cow pens built by Union soldiers in Punta Rassa during the Civil War. Today, the 120-year-old lighthouse is a picturesque point of interest where tourists gather to take photographs, especially in the early morning and late evening against the backdrop of the rising and setting sun. But sitting in a wildlife preserve, the lighthouse and its 127 steps are closed to the public.

The island’s early settlers and fishermen had actually petitioned Congress back in 1833 to place a lighthouse on the island, but their entreaties went unheeded. According to the historical marker at the lighthouse, in the late 1870s, the U.S. Lighthouse Board took the initiative in requesting funds for a lighthouse on Sanibel Island, stating in its application that:

“A light on Sanabel [sic] Island would supply a want that has long been felt for a light-house between Key West and Egmont Key. The coastwise trade of Florida is considerable, and increasing. A great number of sailing-vessels, also six steamers, are now plying between Key West and ports on the west coast of Florida; and vessels bound across Florida Bay make their landfall at and take their departure from the southern point of Sanabel [sic] Island.”

It was not until 1883, however, that Congress finally appropriated the $50,000 needed for the project. While the superstructure was being fabricated in a metal factory in New Jersey, work began on the eastern tip of the island in February 1884 that included a 162-foot-long wharf built on creosoted piles to facilitate the unloading of building supplies for the tower and for two square keeper’s dwellings, topped by hipped roofs and supported by iron pilings. Just two miles from Sanibel Island, the ship carrying the superstructure ran aground on a shoal and sank. Assisted by a diver, crews aboard the lighthouse tenders Arbutus and Mignonette were able to recover almost all of the pieces.

The 104-foot-tall structure consists of four iron legs arranged in a pyramidal fashion around a cylindrical central column that stops about 20 feet from the ground and must be accessed by an external staircase. The lighthouse was fitted with a third-order French-built lens designed by the French physicist Augustin Fresnel in 1822. Set at a height of 98 feet, the lens originally emitted a fixed white light that was interrupted in two-minute intervals by a brighter surge in light that could be seen 16 miles out to sea. Fueled by kerosene, the light was lit for the first time on August 20, 1884 by keeper Dudley Richardson.

In 1933, the light pattern was changed to two sequential white flashes every ten seconds. In 1962, the lighthouse was converted to electricity. In the process of electrifying the light, the Coast Guard removed the tower’s third-order Fresnel lens and installed a 300 millimeter drum lens that had been used on a lightship. “One year later, an electrical outage caused the lighthouse to go dark for one week, ruining its 79-year perfect record for continuous power,” Hill and Jordan report.

In 1972, the Coast Guard proposed discontinuing the lighthouse, but feedback provided by local residents and mariners convinced them to keep it lit. The City of Sanibel assumed management of the lighthouse property in 1982. The tower itself was officially transferred to the city some 28 years later, during a ceremony held April 21, 2010. Using a $50,000 state historic preservation grant and money from its beach parking fund, Sanibel City Council awarded a $269,563 contract to Razorback LLC in May 2013 to restore the lighthouse. During the summer of 2013, the contractors replaced sections of deteriorated steel on the tower and then sanded and painted the exterior.

The lighthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is still an active aid to navigation.

The Boca Grande Pass and Gasparilla Island Lighthouses

In 1888, the U.S. Congress allocated $35,000 for the U.S. Lighthouse Service to build a lighthouse on the southern tip of Gasparilla Island to mark the entrance to Boca Grande Pass, the deepest natural port in the state. By the time the lighthouse was lit on December 31, 1890, the port at Boca Grande had become the hub for the local phosphate industry, which mined the mineral along the Pearl River, placed it on barges, which were unloaded onto ships in Boca Grande Pass for transport to other destinations for processing.

The wooden lighthouse was constructed atop a series of iron pilings that elevated the structure, protecting it from frequent high water caused storms and hurricanes of the gulf. On top and in the center of the one-story dwelling, a square tower was constructed, which supported a circular lantern room inside an octagonal cupola that raised the elevation of the light to 44 feet. The light was an iron screw pile design with wood frame that originally utilized a 3 ½ order clam-shaped Fresnel lens that was used to broadcast a white light interrupted by flashes of red out to sea. The lens opened and closed as it rotated. Today, a 5th order drum lens has taken the place of the original lens.

Adjacent to the lighthouse, another almost identical building was constructed, minus the tower and lantern. It was used as an assistant keepers dwelling.

In 1932, the Gasparilla Island Rear Range Light came into operation on Gasparilla Island. Built in 1885 as the Delaware Breakwater Rear Range Light, it was dismantled in 1921 and shipped to Miami. In 1927 it was shipped to Gasparilla Island and reassembled. It was relit in 1932, and had a companion light, the Front Range Light, in the Gulf of Mexico off of Gasparilla Island. When the two lights lined up, a ship’s navigator knew it was time to turn to enter Boca Grande Pass.

In 1939, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) took over operation of lighthouses from the U.S. Lighthouse Service. During World War II, the lighthouse was used to watch for German U-boats and a submarine watch tower was erected to the west of the light to facilitate that effort. The keeper, Cody McKeithan, kept in touch with the Coast Guard by radio. The radio was kept on the second floor of the lighthouse.

The port was used as a safe harbor at night, with up to 30 ships mooring at the dock to avoid German subs. While it was not reported at the time, the Merchant Marine reports that as many as 189 merchant and military ships were sunk by subs in the Gulf of Mexico and the Carribean in 1942 alone.

In 1956 the light was automated, and the era of lighthouse keepers on Gasparilla Island came to an end. The light was deactivated in 1966 and a year later the Coast Guard abandoned the facility, leaving the station to the elements and vandalism until ownership transferred from the federal government to the care of the local county government. By this time, erosion had chewed away at the shoreline along the southern tip of the island which left the screw piles exposed. The light began to tilt, and soon the entire structure was in danger of falling into the Pass.

Local residents petitioned the federal government to assist in rebuilding the shoreline, but their appeals were ignored. But in 1972 the light and the land around it were transferred to Lee County. In 1980, the Gasparilla Island Conservation and Improvement Association was successful in getting the structure placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and set about raising funds for the restoration of the property. When FPL had to dredge the basin of the oil dock next to the lighthouse in 1982, they placed the sand around the light, shoring it up. FPL also had two rock groins built in front of the light to help retain the sand. The buildings were fully restored in 1985-1986, including the installations of a 377 mm drum lens, putting the old lighthouse back into service as an active aid to navigation.

In 1988 the lighthouse and the land around it was transferred to the State of Florida. Housing a museum that is dedicated to sharing the history of the lighthouse and local area, the lighthouse today serves as the centerpiece of Gasparilla Island State Park. It is one of only six lighthouses in Florida that is open to the public, and the only one on the west coast. Barrier Island Parks Society, a nonprofit Citizen Support Organization, manages and operates the museum.

In 2007, the lighthouse won the “Best Looking Lighthouse” award from Florida Monthly Magazine.

The Egmont Key Lighthouse in Tampa Bay

It has long been believed that Hernando Desoto first discovered the small island located at the mouth of the Tampa Bay before his famous expedition exploring the American interior. However the island owes its name British surveyor George Gauld, who named the small island after John Perceval, second Earl of Egmont and First Lord of the Admiralty. Through the years, the island has been home to two lighthouses, a fort, a movie theater, a cemetery, boat pilots, and a radio beacon. Today, all that remains on the island is a truncated lighthouse, crumbling remains of the fort, a small colony of gopher tortoises, and a park ranger to interpret the island’s history.

The effort to erect a lighthouse on Egmont Key began on July 5, 1837, when Lieutenant Napoleon L. Coste filed the following report at the behest of Secretary of the Treasury Levi Woodbury on the need for a lighthouse at the entry to Tampa Bay:

“I have the honor to report that the first place which presents itself to me of importance for the erection of a light-house, is at the mouth of Tampa bay, on the north point of Eggmont [sic] key. The western coast of Florida is very low, and similar in appearance, making it necessary for the mariner to have some mark by which he could take his departure; and as Eggmont [sic] is the point which all vessels endeavor to make when bound to St. Mark’s, Appalachicola, or St. Joseph’s, it is my opinion, that by the erection of a light-house on the point above mentioned, the navigation of the coast would be facilitated, and much property saved which is now annually lost by shipwreck. It is also important that I should inform you that a light-house would be a leading mark over the bar into Tampa bay, a bar capable of admitting small class frigates, and navigable to within ten miles of its head for sloops-of-war at all times.”

At the time, the federal government was embroiled in a war with the Seminole Indians that lasted until the Spring of 1842. With costs associated with the war exceeding $40 million, Congress was ill prepared to appropriate any money for a lighthouse. But after Florida achieved statehood in 1845, shipping traffic in and out of Tampa Bay increased dramatically and two years later, Congress finally approved $10,000 for a lighthouse on Egmont Key.

Work began on the lighthouse during the summer of 1847. The project was on schedule to be completed by January 1, 1848 when the supply ship Abbe Baker, which was transporting bricks from New York for the lighthouse, ran aground on Orange Key. Nearly half of the bricks in the ship’s manifest had to be tossed overboard in order to refloat the ship. By February of 1848, the tower stood at a height of twenty feet, but work had to be halted until a new shipment of bricks arrived. The tower was officially certified on April 19, 1848, with Sherrod Edwards, the first keeper of Egmont Key Lighthouse, activating the light for the first time a short while later. At that time, the lighthouse was the only one between Key West and St. Marks.

In the 1850s, the U.S. Government instigated another war with the Seminoles that was designed to round up and deport the 600 or so Indians still living in the Everglades south of the Peace River and west of Lake Okeechobee. A stockade was built on Egmont Key to hold Seminole Indians captured by federal troops and three companies of Florida volunteers, who ventured deep into the Glades in long, flat-bottomed steel boats large enough to hold 16 men with all their supplies. Only 41 Indians were brought to Egmont during the war and they were picked up on May 5, 1858 by the steamer Grey Cloud, which was bound for New Orleans and then Oklahoma with Chief Billy Bowlegs and 124 of his tribesmen, women and children, who’d surrendered to the soldiers at Fort Myers in March of that year.

It was during this time that the lighthouse was torn down due to damage it sustained during several strong hurricanes and a lightning strike that opened cracks in the tower. Following a $16,000 appropriation made by Congress on August 18, 1856, a new tower was completed in 1857 roughly ninety feet inland from the site of the previous tower. At 87 feet, it was twice as tall as the original tower, and with three-foot-thick walls, it was better able to withstand the winds and storm surge associated with gulfcoast storms.

Starting in 1858, the lighthouse exhibited a fixed-light produced by a third-order Fresnel lens at a focal plane of 86 feet.

With the advent of the Civil War and installation of the Anaconda Plan’s Union blockade of the coast from Maryland around the Florida peninsula and up the Mississippi, Egmont Key Lighthouse Keeper George V. Rickard knew it was only a matter of months before the Union seized control of the lighthouse for the North. Rickard feigned allegiance to Union blockaders stationed under the command of Lt. Comdr. William B. Eaton near the island, but while the Union gunboats were on patrol one day, Rickard crated up the Fresnel lens and hightailed it to Tampa with as many supplies as he could transport. It was only a delaying tactic. Union naval forces seized the lighthouse and installed a makeshift light, and it was not until after June 2, 1866 that a fourth-order lens was placed in the tower and used until 1896, when it was replaced by a third-order lens with two red sectors.

“In 1898, during the Spanish-American War, Fort Dade was constructed on the island as part of a comprehensive coastal defense system,.” states Lighthousefriends.com. The fort, along with another on Mullet Island to the northeast, stood watch over the entrance to Tampa Bay.

A 1907 Light List noted that a conch shell would be sounded at Egmont Key in answer to signals from passing vessels. This unique fog signal was replaced on February 18, 1916 by a bell struck by machinery.

“The fort was staffed during World War I as well,” Lighthousefriends.com continues, “and by the time it was deactivated in 1923, a movie theater, bowling alley, tennis courts, and miles of brick roads had been constructed on the island. In 1915, an acetylene light was established atop a reinforced concrete pile structure to form, with Egmont Key Lighthouse, a set of range lights. A radio beacon was added to the station in 1930.”

In 1944, the upper portion of the lighthouse was removed along with the Fresnel lens, and a double-headed DCB-36 Rotating Beacon was placed on top of the capped tower.

The remaining keeper’s dwelling was demolished in 1954 and replaced by a one-story barracks. In 1974, Egmont Key became a National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The island was also added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, due to the lighthouse and remains of Fort Dade. With the addition of a DCB-24 Rotating Beacon in 1990, the lighthouse became the last lighthouse in the country to be automated. The Egmont Key Lighthouse was also the last remaining staffed lighthouse in Florida and one of only seven in the United States. Today, the Florida Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service work together to manage the island.

The lighthouse celebrated its 150^th anniversary in November of 2008. In 2013, the lens pedestal from Egmont Key Lighthouse was shipped to Tallahassee to be restored by the Florida State Conservation Laboratory. Volunteers working at the lighthouse hope this is just one small step towards restoring the lighthouse to its pre-1944 appearance.

Egmont Key is open to the public and there are a number of organizations that run tours out to the island.  Along with the lighthouse, the island offers unaltered beaches and an old fort just waiting to be explored.  While the lighthouse itself is not open to the public, visitors may walk the grounds and enjoy the views of the lighthouse

About Kinetic Monumental Sculptor Harry McDaniel

Harry McDaniel is a nationally-recognized Asheville, North Carolina monumental sculptor whose work typically includes some form of kinetic aspect. “Most of those pieces have been outdoor sculptures in aluminum, but I have also created some mobiles and I have worked with other materials.  The kinetic aspect of my mobiles has evolved into outdoor kinetic sculptures,” McDaniel stated.

Through the years, McDaniel’s artwork has demarked by a diversity of materials, style, technique, and content. “It is difficult to explain the diversity, except to say that I love to experiment and I am drawn to new challenges,” the sculptor admits.” I have worked with wood, metals, cement, plastic, and found objects. Some of the threads that tie my work together are humor, a fascination with curves, motion (or implied motion), and an interest in the human condition. My sculptures can roughly be divided into two parts–decorative works and social commentary.

Decorative Works and Public Art

McDaniel’s decorative works include freestanding sculptures (indoor and outdoor), wall pieces, and mobiles. They range in size from tabletop pieces to a 200′ long outdoor sculpture (Ghost Train). These works tend to be curvy, abstract, distorted geometric forms. Most embody a strong sense of motion. “I am intrigued by motion or, more accurately, the paths taken by objects in motion,” McDaniel expounds.” I love to let my eyes trace the path of a bird swooping through the air or a fish gliding through water. Many of my sculptures are like 3-D snapshots of such motions.

Mobiles and Kinetic Scuptures

While most of McDaniel’s decorative pieces contain aspects of implied motion, the mobiles and kinetic sculptures are literally set in motion by ball-bearing assisted wind power. “The delicate balance and subtle, graceful, gliding motions of mobiles have intrigued me since I was a child,” Harry explains. “As a sculptor I appreciate the ever-changing shapes and intersections of lines and the sense of life conveyed by the sculpture’s response to air movement. My largest mobile is a 55′ long installation called Eclipse that I created for a hospital lobby.”

Social Commentary

McDaniel also creates works of social commentary that include his American Artifacts series, figurative pieces, and other works. These pieces often include an element of humor. The materials are often related to the meaning of the pieces. Some pieces are based on McDaniel’s personal experiences and struggles; others are derived from his observations and understandings of the world around him.

American Artifacts

The American Artifacts series is a group of mixed-media sculptures accompanied by text. The work is created and presented in a form that simulates an exhibit in a natural history museum. At first glance, the sculptures appear to be artifacts from some foreign or primitive culture, but on closer inspection viewers find that the “artifacts” are derived from objects common to modern life in the United States. The accompanying text describes the objects in a style reminiscent of the descriptions one might find in a natural history museum beside stone axes and broken ceramic figurines, yet it refers to our own culture.

Figurative Works

“A significant amount of my artwork has included the human figure in one form or another,” McDaniel observes.” My work has included life-size figures, portions of figures, and installations using mannequins. I find something particularly compelling in life-size human figures. They tend to create a strong presence in a room regardless of the style or material. We are ‘programmed’ (psychologically if not biologically) to relate to the human form in certain ways. When a viewer encounters a figurative sculpture he brings a certain familiarity that, at least for a moment, allows him to feel a likeness to the sculpture. The viewer also feels his difference of course, and from this contradiction he must draw some meaning.”

The entire range of McDaniel’s sculptures (more than 100 images) can be seen on his website: <HarryMcDaniel.com>.

Biographical Information

Harry McDaniel was born in 1959 in Wichita, Kansas. As a child, he lived in Missouri, New Jersey, and North Carolina. He recalls that growing up he always enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together. “My mother tells me that I took my pacifiers apart.” He did some drawing and painting as a boy, but was more interested in building go-carts and tree forts. As a young adult, he was drawn to art, but did not anticipate that he would make a career as a sculptor. “In 1983, I took a painting class at a community art center in Connecticut and really liked it,” says McDaniel of the turning point in his career.” I then took a metal sculpture class and really liked it too. In the summer of 1984 I saw an ad in a local weekly paper requesting design submissions for a public art project for the train station in Stamford, Connecticut. I had looked at public sculptures many times and thought ‘I could do better than that,’ so I decided it was time to put my money where my mouth was.” He spent the next week designing and creating a couple of models. “I became totally absorbed in the project and at the end of the week (though I was not awarded the commission) it was clear that creating artwork was deeply satisfying to me and I needed to make it an ongoing part of my life.”

Public Art Projects

In the past 25 years, he has produced a wide range of sculptures, including the following public art installations:

• 2013  Flourish; Rockville Senior Center; Rockville, MD
• 2012  Beacons; Florida Gulf Coast University; Fort Myers, FL
• 2011  Cormorant; Valdosta State University; Valdosta, GA
• 2011  A Flower for Giving; Lenoir Memorial Hospital; Kinston, NC
• 2010  Ghillie Dhu’s Enchantment; City Center Park; Gastonia, NC
• 2008  Deco Gecko; Pritchard Park; Asheville, NC
• 2007  Redbird; Fred Fletcher Park; Raleigh, NC
• 2004  Dancers; Florida State University;Tallahassee, FL
• 2004  Spires (purchase); Florida Atlantic University; Boca Raton, FL
• 2003  Fiddleheads; UNCA-Kellogg Center; Hendersonville, NC
• 2003  Ghost Train; New River Trail State Park; Pulaski, VA
• 2001  Avian Muse; 30′ long mobile; Robert Morgade Library; Stuart, FL
• 2000  Neptunian Frolic (purchase); Brevard County Health Dept.; Titusville, FL
• 1999  Eclipse; Outpatient lobby, Moore Regional Hospital; Pinehurst, NC
• 1988  Agrisculpture; suspended sculpture; Agricultural History Park; Derwood, MD

For exhibition history and additional biographical information, please refer to: <HarryMcDaniel.com>

Hanging in Howard Hall on the Florida Gulf Coast University campus is a public artwork titled Cosmos. Representing “an abstract colorful cosmos of hypothetical stars and galaxies,” the 15-foot-tall by 21-foot-wide modernist sculpture is comprised of recycled glass bottles and solar-powered electrical components stitched onto a framework of steel and welded aluminum that is suspended by stainless steel cables from beams overhead at three points of attachment.

From the white tiled floor of the student coffee bar, the piece does convey the look and feel of a galaxy of glass bottles floating upward in space like stars and cosmic bodies. However, viewed from the second floor mezzanine, the piece takes on a more dynamic and dramatic aspect, as if the assortment of midnight blue, green, purple, and rose bottles are being sucked into the vortex of some unseen black hole, a suggestion that is accentuated by the curlicues at either end of the central curved steel superstructure.

Affixed to the tail of that curved steel superstructure is a double spiral that, to Florida viewers, looks suspiciously like the symbol used by the National Weather Service and meteorologists to denote a hurricane. Interestingly, hurricanes do resemble double-spiral galaxies, which are thought to rotate or revolve around black holes. Some postulate that spiral galaxies express the principle of maximum work in quantum thermodynamics, vortex ether mechanics and other laws of quantum physics. Regardless of the explanation, it is sufficient for the students and faculty who view Cosmos to note that some celestial systems do in fact possess the same shape as the hurricanes that periodically ravage the coast of Southwest Florida.

But the piece transcends extra-terrestrial themes. “While colored glass is naturally beautiful, bottles are also functional mass-produced objects that can bring up thoughts about contemporary culture and the challenge of sustainable living,” states sculptor Marta Thoma Hall, who has developed a national reputation for incorporating recycled materials and utilizing renewable resources such as solar into her work. In fact, glass-bottle public art projects such as Double Wave, Water Source, Gila Shade, Two Tears and Water Drop Journey have resonated with city officials precisely because they serve to raise public awareness about ecological responsibility, conservation and sustainable living.

The work is kinetic, with the moving elements being powered by solar cells that are individually mounted on the art to catch sunlight. They are timed so that one element moves at the half hour and both elements move at the hour. The art rotates from several seconds to several minutes. As the kinetic spirals rotate, the colors change as the overlapping colors bottles cross each other and change position. The colors of the glass and acrylic bottles is semi-transparent so that different color combinations occur as they overlap each other. Fort example, pink tinted glass moving in front of blue tinted glass creates a purple effect. Yellow glass or acrylic moving in front of blue creates green. The ending position of the artwork is determined by the amount of sunlight coming in the windows that day, turning the spirals and gliding to a resting position that is random.

The overall weight of the piece is roughly 550 pounds. It was commissioned in May of 2011 and installed in 2012 at a cost of $84,800. Cosmos is part of the Florida Art in Public Buildings program, an initiative started in 1979 pursuant to section 255.043 of the Florida Statutes, which earmarks 0ne-half of one percent of the amount the legislature appropriates for the construction of state buildings for the acquisition of public artworks.

About Sculptor Marta Thoma Hall

For more than three decades, sculptor Marta Thoma Hall has been creating celebrated public art installations and award-winning solo fine art exhibitions. As a nationally-recognized public artist, she has created integrated civic sculpture in Arizona, California, Florida and Washington State. Her work as an artist has taken her to New York, London, South America, and Asia. “I work with plastic, glass, and other recycled materials as much as possible. The bottles are safety treated for public art.”

Her public art installations include:

• Brain Works, 30′ glass and steel with solar in Bestor Art Park, San Jose CA (2013-14)
• Water Source, Gila Blue, and Gila Mural, 150′ x 25′ with solar in Goodyear, Arizona (2011)
• Journey of a Bottle, 25′ x 12′ suspended sculpture, in Walnut Creek Main Library (2010)
• Journey of a Water Drop, 9′ x 15′ suspended sculpture, Blaine, WA (2010)

Hall graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in fine arts, but she learned extensively about economics from her father, who was a Professor of Economics at the University of Tehran. Today, Marta serves as President of Velodyne Acoustics, Inc., where she oversees the design and development of new products as the company expands into new markets. She looks forward to bringing her aesthetic and love of fine art to Velodyne’s celebrated and legendary audio technology

Hall’s Process

“My sculpture begins as a line drawing,” states Marta Hall, who is assisted in her public artwork by husband, David. “The final sculptural composition changes depending on how the material moves, tells its story, and exerts its opinion.”

“My recent steel sculptures are like line drawings made of various marks in space created by different weights of welded steel pipe and wire,” Marta expounds. “Glass and plastic bottles are stitched onto this steel frame, like glass beads onto a tapestry. I learned to stitch and sew at an early age and it was a logical concept to thread bottles with steel wire. Strung onto lines, the bottles are grouped together on the sculpture, creating tone and density that flow over the steel armature like transparent watercolors over a line drawing. The difference is that you can walk around the drawing.”

In 1993, Hall participated in the Sanitary Fill Artist-In-Residency Program (now called the Recology Artist-in-Residency Program) at the Bay Area dump. She was inspired by the sight of bottles heaped into various discarded piles and created Earth Tear, an 8-foot-tall sculpture made of 250 plastic bottles and steel. “Transparent and tinted glass and plastic bottles are seductive like diamonds and gems. They are also mass-produced functional objects, quickly discarded and considered trash destined to become landfill. The sculpture embodies questions about what is beauty, what is art, what has value, and what is trash. It brings up questions about our culture, and how we are caring for the environment.”

Permanently installed at the Recology Public Art Garden in South San Francisco, Earth Tear represents the seminal work in what Marta has come to call her “Green Art” series. “The [series] is a continuation of artwork informed by surrealism, cubism, modernism, pop art, and environmental art,” Hall relates. “In 1989 I began making sculpture with ‘ready-mades,’ everyday items such as spoons, industrial vents, fans, and flexible electrical conduit. By including such objects, I believe the work has the soul of a past life from its previous use and meaning in culture. Like in a dream, symbolic objects appear, and like a dream, the art can be the subject of varied interpretations.”

“Hall’s art evokes a sense of story and history, while mirroring and opening windows into the future,” says Carrie Rehak, Ph.D, U.C. Berkeley. “Her art turns the ordinary into extraordinary, the uniform into the unique, and the utilitarian into sublime.”

Cosmos is just the latest iteration of this long line of work.

About David Hall

David Hall, founder and CEO, is the technology visionary behind Velodyne Acoustics, Inc. Hall built his first amplifier at the age of four and has been developing groundbreaking products ever since. In 1983, he introduced a revolutionary technology in subwoofer design, which served as the driving force behind the ULD-18. It incorporated a patented, accelerometer-based High Gain Servo System to control woofer cone movement. The ULD series was the first of many acclaimed subwoofer series over the past 30 years. Hall is equally comfortable writing computer code as he is at working in a machine shop.

Hall has continued his role as visionary, working tirelessly to bring his creative ideas to life. In addition to audio technology, he continues to pioneer the laser imaging space that many of the autonomous vehicles use today. He is currently developing self-stabilizing marine technology.

Hall graduated from Case Western Reserve University with B.S. in engineering. He is the father of three children and still enjoys a love for cycling and motorcycles. Hall continues to hold the world runner-up robot war championship title

Situated at the front door of the campus’ academic core, Raymond L. Lutgert’s imposing geometric sculpture, Human Race, greets faculty, students and visitors to Florida Gulf Coast University. The minimalist piece consists of two 24-foot-tall curved stainless steel columns set in a reflecting pool. When the sun hits the textured columns just right, the water sparkles with patterns.

“The work symbolizes the competition of individuals whether in business or in other aspects of life,” noted Lutgert, who died May 28, 2010. Allegorically, the columns can be regarded as two figures competing, the one curving forward in victory, with the other folding back on itself in defeat.

Lutgert Hall

The sculpture stands guard outside Lutgert Hall. The state-of-the-art four-story facility contains 10 classrooms and two-tiered case study classrooms, three conference rooms for students and faculty, a student affairs suite, a career development suite with an interview room, a student management portfolio room and an executive training room, the dean’s suite and faculty offices. The building also features a student advisement wing, a training classroom for EMBA and SBDC seminars and a faculty lounge. Its three-story atrium and exterior courtyard encourage small group gatherings and allow large group events to be hosted on site. The Lutgert College of Business is dedicated to providing business students with an education that mixes the tools of analysis and creativity with application, communication and team skills. The college is also a leader in serving the area business community with both credit and non-credit services.

Lutgert Hall was designed by Schenkel Shultz Architecture, which has designed more than 3.8 million square feet of higher education projects nationwide, including the award-winning Stetson University Lynn Business Center, the first LEED®-certified building in Florida. Headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Schenkel Shultz has 11 offices around the country, including one in Naples and another in Fort Myers.

Owens, Ames, Kimball Company of Fort Myers served as construction manager for Lutgert Hall.

Naples residents Raymond and Beverly Lutgert donated $5 million in 2007 for the new academic building. A $5 million dollar-for-dollar gift match in state money, plus previously appropriated funding of $9.4 million, was used to construct the $19.4 million facility

About Raymond L. Lutgert

Although in his later years he became an accomplished sculptor, Raymond L. Lutgert left his mark on Naples as a businessman and founder of Lutgert Cos, whose signature projects include the Mercato in North Naples, the Promenade in Bonita Springs, the Neapolitan Way shopping center in Naples and the Northern Trust building at U.S. 41 and Park Shore Drive. Lutgert also helped start a specialized cancer center for the NCH Healthcare System and over the years his company branched out into insurance, title and mortgage underwriting, and real estate sales through it real estate division, Premier Properties of Southwest Florida, Inc.

Lutgert was born in Chicago in 1919. He was introduced to construction early, working in his father’s building materials yard before going into real estate development in the 1940s. After “retiring” to Naples in 1964, Lutgert saw an opportunity to develop 760 acres of barren land north of Naples that became Park Shore – a picturesque community that includes beach-front homes and high-rises and the waterfront shopping center, Village on Venetian Bay.

Of course, many questioned the wisdom of developing Park Shore because it was, at the time, far from town. But today Park Shore is widely regarded as Lutgert’s most visible and enduring legacy.

In January 2007, the Edison College Foundation honored Raymond and Scott Lutgert with its LIFE Award, which recognizes leadership in advancing educational opportunities. It was the first time the award went to a father and son. A veritable “who’s who” of business leaders gathered for the luncheon in their honor. They were still talking about the record $2 million bid that Lutgert had made a few days earlier at the Naples Winter Wine Festival auction, where he won a 2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop convertible albeit at a cost of four times the actual value of the car. “Everybody is telling me congratulations for buying the car,” he said at the awards ceremony. “That isn’t what it was all about, of course.” The annual auction raises millions for children’s charities in Collier County every year.

The Lutgert family has been a leading supporter of the Naples Children & Education Foundation, which organizes the Naples Winter Wine Festival and gives out the grants every year to charities that benefit children. Scott Lutgert has become a pillar in the community, carrying on the proud tradition he father began 50 years ago.

Lutgert came to sculpture late in life, taking an interest in the discipline at the age of 65. He took a class at Appalachian State University in North Carolina and studied with noted American sculptor Wayne Trapp. Over the years, he created several hundred pieces, winning numerous awards. Today, his sculptures are found throughout Naples, including Genesis, a modern, mirrored statue in front of the Northern Trust building (right), and Prelude, Water Nymph (right) and Transitions at the shops at the Village on Venetian Bay. One of four replicas of Human Race also sits on the corner of Park Shore Drive and Gulf Shore Boulevard North near The Village on Venetian Bay.

Florida Gulf Coast University President Wilson Bradshaw called Lutgert’s death on May 28, 2010 devastating for the community.

[Photo credit and thanks for aerial shots goes to Lexey Swall-Bobay/Staff; credit and thanks for photos of Ray Lutgert and off-campus sculpture goes to Savid Albers.]

Bud is a 14’ high by 10’ wide by 10’ deep single-axis aluminum and steel kinetic sculpture created by Atlanta metal sculptor Phil Proctor that is located next to the Kapnick Research & Education Center to the right of the entrance of the Naples Botanical Garden. It was purchased by Florida Gulf Coast University in 2011 with funds provided by Florida’s Art in State Buildings Program (Fla. Stat. 255.043).

The top of Bud rotates in the wind. By including one or more moving components, kinetic sculptures like Bud define the relationship between matter and energy. They express a relationship between objects and forces in our physical environment. Built from materials of structural purpose but with organic form, shape and motion, Bud illustrates man’s desire to organize and define the chaos of the natural world, thus making it a good and logical fit for its inclusion in the Naples Botanical Garden.

Proctor works with found and recycled objects. He prefers  “solid” materials like metal and stone, using them in a manner that accommodates their natural tendencies. His approach is interpretive. Proctor explores their materiality to find their “voice.” In essence, the materials tell him what they are, what they were or what they desire to be. This intuitive approach gives Proctor a way to analyze his own interactions with culture, life and physical existence.

Proctor also utilizes the colors and textures that occur as a result of natural oxidation and patination.  This technique makes his outdoor sculpture virtually maintenance free while simultaneously exhibiting qualities of earthliness and wholeness.

Bud was fabricated in 2009 and first exhibited as part of the Atlanta Beltline Art Project between May and October of 2010 before being acquired by FGCU for installation in the Naples Botanical Garden.

About Phil Proctor

Metal sculptor Phil Proctor has been living and working in southeast Atlanta since 2003. Originally from south Mississippi, he holds a BFA from the University of Southern Mississippi and an MFA from East Carolina University. Proctor has permanent sculpture installations throughout the southeast, as well as a number of countries across Western Europe.

In 2003 Phil was commissioned by a private development group in conjunction with the City of Atlanta and Marta to design and construct a public artwork, Linkage, which stands at Atlanta’s second busiest Marta station handling an average of 23,400 boardings per weekday.  This 75 foot linear sculpture incorporates aluminum and copper plates that represent the expansive reach of MARTA and the way it links communities together through the ease of transportation.

Located at South Bend Park, Anchored Sail is one of six projects commissioned by the city as part of the Public Art Community Gateway Project.  This 22 foot tall kinetic artwork incorporates elements that symbolically reflect the historical and cultural values of the

Proctor’s best known sculpture is One Woman Rising, a 12-foot tall female figure representing a woman rising in dance. He created this piece at the request of Atlanta’s Chelko Foundation for One Billion Rising, a global movement that demands an end to violence against women and girls. The sculpture stands in Freedom Park, atop the hill east of the intersection of Moreland Avenue and Freedom Parkway in Atlanta, GA.

“In keeping with Paul Chelko’s vision to end gender bias and empower women worldwide, this highly visible landmark is inspired by Eve Ensler’s recent global day of action, One Billion Rising, calling for the end of violence against women and girls,” says the Foundation of the sculpture. “Fabricated by Atlanta artisan Phil Proctor , assisted by Geo Brenick (Geo4Design), the abstract sculpted dancing woman speaks to the celebration of woman’s release from bondage and her dynamic move into a new creative space.” The statue radiates the grace of the feminine form and is painted by World Champion body painters, Scott Fray and Madelyn Greco (Living Brush Bodypainting). Surrounding the sculpture is a railing where viewers are invited to use ribbons and markers to share their reasons for rising and their stories of empowerment and survival.

Proctor’s most recent project is a 23-foot tall Corinthian column weighing over 13 tons for the Atlanta Beltline Art Project. The Atlanta BeltLine is a sustainable redevelopment project that will provide a network of public parks, multi-use trails and transit along a historic 22-mile railroad corridor circling downtown and connecting many neighborhoods directly to each other.

Created out of railroad artifacts, Iron Column symbolizes Atlanta’s architectural and railroad history while recalling the Corinthian columns that adorned the façade of the former Union Station, the city’s main railroad station, which was demolished in 1972. Using rails, spikes, plates, switches, and rail anchors, Proctor’s design was chosen from more than 20 competitive applications. The selection panel included representatives of Atlanta BeltLine, Inc., City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs, the Georgia Chapter of the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), and members from the arts community.

“This piece marks a new milestone for public art on the Atlanta BeltLine,” said Paul Morris, President and CEO of Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. “Using the history of this rail corridor to enhance the new public realm is another step towards the fulfillment of the comprehensive Atlanta BeltLine vision.” Adds IIDA chapter president Ronnie Belizaire, “Public art has a significant impact on quality of life and adds value to communities and is integral to new public realms like the Atlanta BeltLine.”

“I have always been intrigued by classical architecture,” said artist Phil Proctor. “As I was researching Atlanta’s history, I noticed how the classical styles implemented in old rail stations have since been lost to war, neglect, or to make way for new steel and glass buildings. The goal of this sculpture is to celebrate the history of Atlanta and recognize the significant role of the railroad.” The railroad once existed as a border between neighborhoods, a birthplace of industry and the foundation of Atlanta as a trade and business hub. However, in the past decades the corridor has been subject to years of neglect, with businesses and residences facing away from the rail corridor. As the Atlanta BeltLine develops, the historic rail is being removed, giving way to a multi-use trail and transit corridor, readopting the corridor as a public amenity. This monumental sculpture represents the history of the Atlanta BeltLine as a rail corridor, preserving historic artifacts and contributing to the beautification of the corridor through public art.

The installation was completed in time for the launch of the 2013 Art on the Atlanta BeltLine exhibition that began September 7, 2013. Art on the Atlanta BeltLine was the largest temporary public art project in Atlanta to date, with over 70 innovative works of performance and visual art. The exhibition positioned emerging art alongside established art, with featured installations by new and returning artists. Eight miles of paved and interim hiking trails around the 22-mile Atlanta BeltLine corridor provided the public space for the two-month long exhibition. Though the pieces showcased in this exhibition were temporary, they were complemented by Art on the Atlanta BeltLine’s year-round collection that now includes the Corinthian Column.  It is located on the Eastside Trail at the north end of the Historic Fourth Ward Skatepark.

In addition to commissioned works, Proctor frequently exhibits his large scale sculpture locally and regionally in such venues as Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.  His artwork has had a positive impact on communities, which has led to purchases from patrons such as the City of Sandy Springs for “Sky Lark” which currently stands at the Sandy Springs public library.

About the Naples Botanical Gardens

Naples Botanical Garden is a 170-acre world-class garden paradise that features the plants and cultures of the tropics and subtropics between the latitudes of 26 degrees North and 26 degrees South including Brazil, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and Florida. A hands-on interactive Children’s Garden along with 90 acres of beautifully restored natural habitats, walking trails and a Butterfly Garden offer educational entertainment and enjoyment for people of all ages. Founded in 1993, the Garden re-opened to the public in November 2009 after an extensive expansion.

Naples Botanical Garden is located at 4820 Bayshore Drive, Naples, Florida 34112. For more information, please visit http://www.naplesgarden.org, email info@naplesgarden.org or telephone 239-643-7275.

Naples Botanical Garden is rated 4 Stars by Charity Navigator

Included in Florida Gulf Coast University’s permanent art collection are four black-and-white infrared photographs by Ohio artist Pamela Z. Daum. They are Wooden Gate, Brick Wall (2008), Reborn in Florida #1 (2009) and Cypress Knees (2009) hanging in the 2nd Floor Corridor of Academic Building – 5, and De Leone Tree (2009) located in the 3rd Floor Corridor.

About Pamela Z. Daum

Pamela Z. Daum has spent most of her life in Northeast Ohio, but during the four years she lived in Florida, she not only renewed her love of black-and-white photography, she introduced a twist: infrared. “For many years, I fulfilled my creative vision through Polaroid art techniques,” says Daum. “Just as I hit my stride, Polaroid stopped producing film. Rather than grieve my loss, I channeled my photographic vision by re-establishing my roots:  black & white photography. But this time, I’ve added a twist:  Infrared. The stark, ethereal beauty of infrared allows me to observe the common, yet record it in my uncommon way.”

Since that time, she has introduced three B&W Infrared series or collections: Reborn in Florida, Life is a Beach and SSDD (Same Scene, Different Day). She considers Life is a Beach and SSDD as works in progress since she continues to add to these collections. “Same Scene, Different Day is my ongoing B&W infrared series of the view of West Twin Lake from my backdoor, which I capture each day,” says Daum of SSDD. “Though no two days are the same, the bones of the landscape remain mostly unchanged. A dead tree here, the dock there; all look the same in one’s eyes. But, the atmosphere and sky speak of constant change.  Memory can be ephemeral. When I speak of a morning where the fog was as thick as pea soup, it might sound clichéd. However, the captured image of just such a day can be etched in one’s mind. Those are the memories worth creating.”

The photographs in Life is a Beach start in Florida and continue to the North Shore of Lake Erie in Ohio.

Pam’s photography has been featured in books, magazines, and gallery exhibitions from Connecticut to California. Her photographs were recently on display in Times Square, New York. She also was selected by Women’s Caucus for Art in their Best of 2014 Exhibit, ARC Gallery, Chicago. Pam has been awarded a residency at Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, NM, and has received grants from United Arts of Central Florida and Capelli d’Angeli Foundation.

Trained in conventional photographic processes, Daum holds a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio Northern University (1976). In addition to FGCU, her work is included in the permanent public art collection of Orange County, Florida. She is a member of the Florida Artists Registry, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Women’s Caucus for Art, Florida Artists Group and Hudson Society of Artists.

Solo Exhibitions

Following are a list of solo exhibitions of Daum’s work:

• 2013: Land of Enchantment, Hudson Public Library, Hudson, OH
• 2011: Life is a Beach, The Ohio State University Kuhn Gallery, Marion, OH
• 2011: Life is a Beach, University of Central Florida Library Galleries
• 2010: June Featured Artist, Women’s Caucus for Art, New York, NY
• 2010: Audubon Day of Caring, Eileen Fisher, Winter Park, FL
• 2010: Open, Maitland Library
• 2009: Reborn in Florida, The University Club
• 2009: Back to Her Roots, The Office Gallery
• 2006: Polaroid: The Alternative Process, Moos Gallery

Group Exhibitions

Daum has also participated in numerous group shows, including:

• 2013: The Way We See It!, St Paul’s Gallery, Akron, OH
• 2012: Life is a Beach, Summit ArtSpace, Akron, OH
• 2012: Places & Process, Women’s Caucus for Art
• 2012: Bursting Out, Women’s Caucus for Art, San Diego, CA
• 2011: Florida Artist Group Members Exhibition, Maitland Art Center, Maitland, FL
• 2010: 1st Annual Competition, Florida Museum for Women Artists, Florida Museum of Women Artists, DeLand, FL
• 2009: National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gateway Center of the Arts, DeBary, FL

Awards

Pat has received the following awards for her work:

• 2013: Juror’s Award, Chagrin Valley Art center
• 2012: Honorable Mention, Women’s Caucus for Art
• 2011: Founder’s Prize, Florida Artist Group
• 2010: Individual Artist Professional Development Grant, United Arts of Central Florida
• 2009: Special Recognition, Upstream People Gallery
• 2008: Special Recognition, Upstream People Gallery
• 2008: First Place, Albin Polasek Museum
• 2007: Honorable Mention, Hudson Society of Artists
• 2006: Foundation Grant Artist, Capelli d’Angel

The portable works component of Florida Gulf Coast University’s public art collection includes eight prints and four photographs by renowned Florida landscape photographer Clyde Butcher. Seven of the prints hang in the 4th floor office lobby and rooms 4310 and 4312 of Lutgert Hall and the other is in Conference Room 306 in Holmes Hall. The four photographs are:

• Thompson Pine Island Road #6 in the 4th Floor Dean’s Office in Academic Building – 7;
• Loxahatchee River #2 (1997) in Room 224 of Library West;
• Loose Screw Sanctuary (1997) in the First Floor Atrium of Library East; and
• Cayo Costa Island #3 in Room 17 in the physical plant of the Campus Support Complex.

About Clyde Butcher

The majestic beauty, boldness and depth of Clyde Butcher’s photographs have earned him recognition as the foremost landscape photographic artist in America today. For more than forty years, he has been preserving on film untouched areas of landscape. Although he will always be associated with the Florida Everglades, Butcher is deeply committed to recording and protecting precious landscapes throughout the world.

Among his numerous awards and accolades is membership in the Artist Hall of Fame, the highest honor that the State of Florida can award to a private citizen. Butcher is also a recipient of the State of Florida’s Heartland Community Service Award in recognition of the role he has played in educating the people of Florida about the beauty of their state. In a similar vein, the Sierra Club has given him the Ansel Adams Conservation Award, which is given to photographers who show excellence in photography and have contributed to the public’s awareness of the environment. Butcher has also received the North American Nature Photography Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, International University’s 2005 Humanitarian of the Year Award, and the 2011 Distinguished Artists Award from the Florida House in Washington D.C.

The beauty and importance of his photography has resulted in museum exhibits throughout the United States, an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Prague celebrating the new millennium, and a request by the United Nations to photograph the mountains of Cuba to commemorate The Year of the Mountains.

Collections of Butcher’s work can be seen in his books, which include:

• Portfolio I, Florida Landscapes;
• 1995 Limited Edition Collection;
• Visions for the Next Millennium;
• Nature’s Places of Spiritual Sanctuary;
• Florida Landscape;
• Living Waters – Florida’s Aquatic Preserves;
• Cuba – The Natural Beauty;
• Apalachicola River – An American Treasure;
• Seeing the Light: Wilderness and Salvation, a Photographer’s Tale;
• America the Beautiful, a table top collection of his work from across the United States;
• Big Cypress Swamp – The Western Everglades, which features images from the Big Cypress Swamp where he and wife Niki made their home for 16 years; and
• Portfolio II – Florida, a collection of images from Florida.

Clyde had either hosted or been the featured guest in six Public Broadcasting programs, including an award-winning half-hour documentary on Clyde titled Visions of Florida, Big Cypress Preserve: Jewel of the Everglades, Living Waters – Aquatic Preserves of Florida, which Clyde hosted, and Apalachicola River – An American Treasure, in which Clyde was the featured guest. As these award-winning documentaries underscore, the Everglades possesses particular significance to Butcher. The Everglades have changed much in the last 100 years. Originally comprising more than 3 million acres, early settlers drained the land for agriculture and diverted the natural flow of water to rivers like the Caloosahatchee. In the aftermath of the destructive hurricanes of 1926 and 1928, miles of canals, dikes and dams were installed to protect the land around Lake Okeechobee from flooding. Urban areas and their highway connections have further encroached on the watershed and siphoned its water. But through the years, Butcher’s photography has demonstrated that the Florida of times past is still there, even if its harder to find and reach.

Other projects include work for Florida’s “Save Our Rivers” program, the South Florida Water Management District, the Department of Environmental Protection, Divisions of State Lands, the Bureau of Submerged Lands and Preserves, Everglades National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, the Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy, River Keepers and the Wilderness Society.

His Photography

Clyde Butcher’s black-and-white landscape photography is known for evoking a feeling that America’s vistas are timeless even as development approaches. His images of the Florida Everglades, national parks and Cuba are celebrated for the tiny details that emerge from each print – the texture of bark, the veins of a leaf, the ripples within the shadow of a cloud reflected in a body of water. But beyond the aesthetic merits of his work, what distinguishes Clyde Butcher’s photography from that of other landscape photographers is the incredibly detailed mural-sized prints he produces.

By carefully matching view camera format size to the subject matter being photographed, Butcher is able to make prints measuring up to 5 x 9 feet that enable the viewer to experience the breadth and scope of the landscape in the same way that Butcher sees it in the field. Toward the end, Butcher captures his images using a combination of 8 x 10 inch, 11 x 14 inch, and 12 x 20 inch view cameras. These large format cameras enable him to express the elaborate detail and textures that distinguish the intricacy of the landscape.

To capture the images he covets, Butcher hikes off the beaten path with large format cameras, lenses and unexposed film in tow to get just the right shot. He has been known to stand in chest-deep water for hours, waiting until the light, clouds and composition of each dramatic composition come together. “I try to use the largest film possible for the particular subject I’m planning to photograph,” Clyde explains. “So if I have a huge, broad landscape, I use the 12 x 20 inch view camera. If I am photographing something like the Ghost Orchid, I use a 4 x 5 inch view camera.”

Clyde began making large prints as long ago as 1968, but over the last twenty or so years, he has refined and perfected his technique of producing mural-sized prints. “The first time I did a huge print, I had to wash it in a swimming pool,” laughs Butcher. “Eventually, I moved into a large space, where I built big sinks to handle the large sizes of my prints.”

“I want people to view my work up close,” muses Clyde about his desire to create large scale prints. “When you’re in nature, you’re scanning from the log to that tree to the bird to the water, and your mind puts the images together to create the feeling of the scene. When you view my large prints, your mind does the same thing because you cannot see all the images all at once. And sharpness is the key to it. Your eyes – your brain – wants things to be clear and sharp. All of that makes the viewer relate to my images in a way that is similar to the peace felt when being out in nature. I want my images to create a positive emotion in people, with the hope that they carry that emotion out into their lives to make the world a better place in which to live.”

Within the last couple of years, Butcher has begun to substitute lightweight, compact point-and-shoot digital cameras for the heavy, clunky view cameras and wide angle lenses of the past. However, his emphasis remains unchanged. He still looks for angles and details that will draw his viewers into each image he takes. “When I see a scene that stirs my soul, I photograph it. Since I have been photographing the landscape for over fifty years, I instinctively see texture, value, scale and composition, which create a satisfying photograph to me personally. I’m always glad when it’s well-received by others.”

While, in the end, Butcher’s black-and-white photographs explore his own uniquely personal relationship with nature, he does hope that his images inspire feelings of stewardship toward the environment. The wilderness has always been a place where he’s found sanctuary and serenity. It was there he sought refuge after his 17-year-old son, Ted, was killed by a drunk driver. “The mysterious spiritual experience of being close to nature helped restore my soul. It was during that time, I discovered the intimate beauty of the environment. My experience reinforced my sense of dedication to use my art form of photography as an inspiration for others to work together to save nature’s places of spiritual sanctuary for future generations.”

Fast Facts

• Butcher California Polytechnic University in 1960, majoring in architecture.
• While visiting Yosemite National Park in 1963, he learned about the photography studies of Ansel Adams.
• During his senior year of college, Butcher married his college sweetheart Niki.
• During college, Butcher presented his architecture projects by creating and photographing miniature scale models instead of making drawings.
• After graduation, Butcher launched a short-lived career in architecture. However, before transitioning into photography full-time in 1970, he was responsible for a portion of the design of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, California.
• After leaving architecture, Butcher established a firm that marketed and sold his images to the wall décor departments of Sears, Montgomery Ward, and J. C. Penney that eventually supported nearly 200 employees and offices in Akron, Ohio and Southern California. In order to increase sales, Butcher added color photography. The bulk of his photography during this time took place west of the Rocky Mountains and in the Pacific Northwest.
• To escape some of the stress of the business, he moved onto a sailboat with his wife where he lived for seven years, moored in the harbor of Newport Beach, California. The boat had electricity and refrigeration, but conditions were otherwise Spartan. Living without a television on the boat gained the family a sense of peace and solitude while they could take advantage of the city.
• Butcher’s love for boating and the television program Flipper inspired him to explore Florida. Butcher eventually sold his business in California and moved to Florida.

Among the works included in Florida Gulf Coast University’s public art collection are a number of etchings and murals by Sanibel artist Lucas Century. “Luc Century’s discipline-specific recognition walls add a refinement and process appropriate to a university,” says Senior Director of Advancement Judie Cassidy, who has worked with Century on the five installations he has created at FGCU. “In the conceptual process, he encourages donor involvement and blends their ideas with his own. The resulting installations are cerebral, precise and spectacular.”

Century enjoys the largest presence by a single artist on campus, with works in five different buildings at Florida Gulf Coast University. Specifically, Century is responsible for:

• etched tiles titled The Elements of Machinery and Give Me a Place to Stand installed by Century in 2009 in the 1st floor lobby of Holmes Hall;
• a 1991 etched glass piece 50 inches in diameter and 3/4″ thick titled Tourbillion that is located in the first floor lobby of Academic Building – 7;
• a 2001 etched glass work titled Leonard da Vince drawings and sketches that is located in the 1st floor lobby of Whitaker Hall;
• a 10 x 30 foot etched porcelain titled Water Symphony that Century installed in the lobby of the Music Building in 2010; and
• a series of stone etchings located in the lobby of Marieb Hall.

Water Symphony

Water Symphony dominates the narrow lobby of the Bower School of Music. Standing 10 feet tall and 30 feet wide, it is visible through the two-story glass facade long before music students, faculty and guests enter the lobby from the concrete sidewalk that separates the music building from the arts complex. Commissioned by the FGCU Foundation, the mural consists of seventy-five 2-by-2-foot ivory ceramic tiles engraved with black swirling patterns. Like much of Century’s work, it reflects imagery from his beloved Sanibel Island.

“It was inspired by patterns in low tidal areas, the ripples left by the incoming and outgoing water,” Lucas explains. “The intersecting ripples have a marvelous flow. It’s something I watch during my evening walks on the beach.”

About Century’s Etching Process

Since 1977, Century has been perfecting a pioneering process that enables him to etch images and text on a variety of media, including porcelain, stone and glass, with unparalleled clarity and depth. He first used the technique to etch the names of 58,000 service men and women who lost their lives in Vietnam into the granite surface of Maya Lin’s renowned Viet Nam Veteran’s Memorial in the Washington, D.C. Mall in 1984.

“I began to explore other materials beyond granite, such as glass, ceramic and wood, all of which I now incorporate into my work utilizing photo-stenciling and grit-blasting techniques,” Century points out. “Line art from original drawings or appropriated images are transferred into a stencil that is capable of resisting the abrasive grit-blasting. The eroding process removes the substrate, penetrating and etching the surface to create a deep relief, not possible with any other etching process.”

The nature of aluminum oxide grit-blasting is to abrade the surface, which creates a rough texture in contrast to the original surface of the material. These two contrasting surfaces can be left as is, or colors and enhancers can be applied to achieve a different outcome.

About the Artist

Lucas Century at his home studio in Sanibel.
Photos by Brian Tietz
www.briantietz.com
mail@briantietz.com
(239) 823-8850
Photos by Brian Tietz
www.briantietz.com
mail@briantietz.com
(239) 823-8850

Lucas Century was born in Newark, New Jersey and raised in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. “Cleveland has a wonderful cultural community that surrounds University Circle, where museums, galleries and performing art halls abound,” Lucas reports. “I was constantly exposed to this pocket of creative people who radiated the arts, and my fondest memories of my childhood included exploring the avenues of people and venues that Cleveland offer.

While he studied business at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University, his primary interest was nevertheless art. Although he did not study art formally and collaborates with other artists when his work requires illustrations (like the Archimedes mural in Holmes Hall), he cultivated his love of photography. “It fascinated me to develop film and print in the darkroom with chemistry, light, lenses and, best of all, red safe lights,” Lucas recalls. “To go from what the eye captured on film and then be able to translate it on to photographic paper …. well, it just couldn’t get any better than that. It was magical. I remember projecting imagery through the enlarger and spending countless hours cropping and composing my evenings away. These exercises instilled within me a photographer’s eye and a love for this fascinating art form that consequently began a career based around photographic methods.”

Century’s attraction to etching began when he got a job engraving people’s names on snow skis at a resort shop. A window washing gig in the 1970s led to an epiphany. Pulling a squeegee across a pane of glass, Luc saw his reflection and became intrigued with the idea of how to transfer graphic images and color onto glass. This investigation led to four years of experimentation with acid etching and other techniques after which Century developed and perfected an innovative photographic process for creating stencils that could be used in sand-blast engraving. The erosion of the surface technique became a metaphor for the sands of time. “That’s what weather would do, but it’s sped up,” says Luc. “That’s very empowering.”

The artist’s considerable spiritual energy and heartfelt intent is always at play. His love of nature, the aesthetic beauty that lies within, is permanently embedded in his work. “I like expressing the essence of things,” Lucas acknowledges. “There is soulful resonance within life forms and learning to manifest its simplest version is a challenge. I enjoy reworking materials until a balance is reached and discovering yourself through the entire process of unfolding is as much the beauty as the end product.”

A fulltime artist, Century has maintained a home and studio on Sanibel Island for nearly three decades, living and working within a natural sanctuary of lush, subtropical vegetation. He and his illustrator wife, Dee Serage-Century, often work together as a team on projects.

Public Commissions

In addition to his works on the campus of FGCU, Century has completed commissions for:

• Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum
• Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall
• City of Sanibel, Sanibel Island, FL
• Florida SouthWestern State College (formerly Edison State College), Fort Myers, FL
• Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville, FL
• Hope Hospice, Cape Coral, FL
• Hope Hospice, Fort Myers, FL
• Miami City Ballet Company, Miami, FL
• Sanibel Congregational Church
• Sanibel Library
• University of South Florida, Fort Myers campus

Fast Facts.

1. Sanibel was to be a one-week vacation from his work on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 1983. “Either this has turned into the longest vacation on record or the finest Utopian experience I could have imagined,” quips Century.
2. During that first week on Sanibel, Luc met his wife, Dee, on the dance floor at the Crow’s Nest at ‘Tween Waters Inn.

Thanks to a November 20, 2009 gift from the Evelyn Davis Trust, Florida Gulf Coast University’s permanent collection includes seven lithographs by Salvador Dali. Best known for his surrealist paintings of the 1930s and 1940s, Dali also created a number of lithographs based on popular culture including a suite of prints he produced in 1971 for Sidney and Phyllis Lucas of New York. The set consists of six lithographs, each of which incorporates a work from the famed American publishing firm Currier & Ives at its lower center, ranging from Central Park, Winter to The Life of a Fireman: Fire! Fire! Fire! The influence of past artists was frequently present in Dalí’s work from this period, as he sought to integrate his Surrealist aesthetic with new discoveries and evolutions in science and technology in masterpieces as storied as Vermeer’s The Lace Maker and Raphael’s Madonna del Cardellino. The FGCU collection of “Dali Interprets Currier & Ives” limited edition lithographs plus an original sales presentation marquis poster are located in the Special Collections section of Library East (Room 323 on the third floor). All were personally signed and numbered by Dali, and certified to be authentic by Albert Field, who is founder of the Salvador Dali Archives (see below).

Central Park, Winter

This is a Dali homage to a print based on a painting by Charles Parsons, lithographed by Lyman W. Atwater (American, 1835–1891) and printed and published by Currier & Ives in 1862. It depicts a skating pond in New York’s Central Park. The nation’s first, the skating rink opened in 1860, at the advent of the ice skating craze that was sweeping the country. In this scene, Parsons and Atwater render more than 70 skaters.

Parsons was a skilled painter and draftsman. Although he was head of the art department at George Endicott’s lithographic firm, he often created lithographs for Currier & Ives, who by 1862 frequently enlisted the aid of artists across New York in order to meet the growing demand for their prints. Fundamental to Parsons’ association with the imprint was Lyman Atwater’s skill in rendering Parsons’ lively designs on stone. Parsons enjoyed a reputation for imparting great discipline in drawing to the numerous apprentice lithographers he trained during his long career as a commercial artist, and Parsons unquestionably appreciated Atwater’s superior draftsmanship.

One of the most engaging prints that Currier & Ives ever published, the print remained popular for decades. This and many other Currier & Ives winter scenes have been made into Christmas and seasonal greeting cards over the ensuing decades.

The FGCU print is numbered 153 of 250 prints.

The Celebrated Trotting Team

This is Dali’s interpretation of Currier & Ives’ print titled The Celebrated Trotting Team Edward and Swiveller. The horse was owned by a New York attorney by the name of Frank Work, and the team won their match in a time of 2:20, earning a prize of $1,000. The race took place at a driving park in Morrisania, New York on July 8, 1882. The print is based on a painting by noted artist Scott Leighton. This Dali lithograph is numbered 99 of 250 prints.

Landscape, Fruit and Flowers

Numbered 159 of 250 prints, Landscape, Fruit and Flowers is Dali’s homage to Currier & Ives’ print Landscape, Flowers and Fruit by Frances Flora Bond Palmer, a 19th century woman artist known as Fanny Palmer. Recognized for her ability to capture her audience’s visual imagination, Palmer excelled in lithography and became well known for her work, which includes American farm scenes and this Landscape, Fruit and Flowers (1862).

Stella and Alice Grey – Lantern and Whalebone

Numbered 41 of 250 prints, Stella and Alice Grey – Lantern and Whalebone is an ink and watercolor lithograph that measures 29 3/4 by 21 1/2 inches. The lithograph is an interpretation of the eponymous Currier & Ives print created by Louis Maurer, a color miniature of the Currier & Ives print appearing in the bottom center of the Dali lithograph. In this lithograph, two horses pull their drivers, their speed clearly delineated in Dali’s thickly applied orange and blue pigments. The Currier & Ives scene represented is a harness race entitled Stella and Alice Grey, Lantern and Whalebone: Passing the Stand depicting a race in 1855 at the Union Course. Dalí had a life-long appreciation and fascination with horses. As Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret have noted, “Dalí was always a lover of horses. Many of his paintings feature horses, among them The Temptation of St. Anthony, Debris of an Automobile Giving Birth to a Blind Horse Biting a Telephone (right) and St. James of Compostela (Robert Descharnes & Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí 1904-1989, The Paintings, Vol. II, Cologne, 1994, p. 597).

Life of a Fireman

Currier & Ives produced at least twenty-five different fire-fighting prints, most of which featured scenes of heroic men battling dangerous flames. One of the best known is Now Then with a Will – Shake Her Up Boys! Due to poorly regulated 19th century construction, city fires were a common threat and the subject of widespread public concern. In this print, a frightening yet theatrical depiction of flames is offset in this print by illustrations of bravery and hope. Lithographer Nathaniel Currier, who was himself a fireman, draws the viewer into the peak of action by depicting men furiously pumping and spraying water on the flames while other fire fighters climb ladders to rescue residents from a burning building. In a dramatic touch, a fireman emerges from a third-story window with a baby, while the child’s mother on the ground raises her arms in relief. Many of the prints in this series offered descriptions of the latest firefighting equipment.

This 1854 image was the first of several Currier & Ives prints to be used as an advertisement by the American Insurance Company of Newark, New Jersey, which substituted its name for that of the title of the piece. In 1971, Dali created his own interpretation of this print, which he titled Fire! Fire! Fire. The one in FGCU’s collection is numbered 50 of 250 prints.

The Great Ocean Yacht Race

Numbered 65 of 250 prints, The Great Ocean Yacht Race is an ink and watercolor lithograph that measures 29 3/4 by 21 3/4 inches. This lithograph is Dali’s interpretation of the Currier & Ives print, The Great Ocean Yacht Race Between the Henrietta, Fleetwing and Vesta. A color miniature of the print is adhered to the bottom center of the Dali lithograph. In the Currier & Ives print, the Fleetwing is pictured on the left, the Vesta is in the middle and the Henrietta is on the right. On board each vessel, men can be seen cheering. The 1866 image recalls the start of modern ocean racing. In 1866, three schooners of between 32 and 32.6 metres, raced from Sandy Hook, N.J. to Cowes, Isle of Wight under New York Yacht Club rules. The Henrietta, owned by American newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett, won, arriving at 5:45 pm. on Christmas day in a time of 13 days and 22 hours. The Fleetwing arrived 8 hours later, followed by the Vesta 1 1/2 hours after her.

Sales Presentation Marquis

Numbered 45 of 300, the sales presentation marquis is titled Lithographs for the People, the World of Currier and Ives.

Currier & Ives

Currier & Ives was America’s longest running printing establishment. Headed by Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives, the New York City firm published over 7,500 lithographs during its 72 years of operation. In fact, between 1834 and 1895, its artists created two to three images each week, from which more than a million hand-colored lithography prints were produced. To do this work, the firm brought in a number of celebrated artists of the day, including James E. Buttersworth, John Cameron, George Inness, Eastman Johnson, Otto Knirsch, C.H. Moore, Thomas Nast, Charles R. Parsons, Napoleon Sarony, Thomas Worth, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait (who specialized in sporting scenes), Louis Maurer (who executed genre scenes), George H. Durrie (who supplied the company’s iconic New England winter imagery) and Fanny Palmer (who not only executed picturesque panoramas of the American landscape, but was the first woman in the United States to make her living as a full time artist). Most of the lettering was done by J. Schultz. Hundreds of other craftspeople worked grinding stones, printing, coloring, selling and supplying images.

The earliest lithographs were printed in black and white and then colored by hand. As new techniques evolved, Currier & Ives found it possible to produce full-color lithographs that featured softer, more painterly effects. Its prints were among the most popular wall hangings of the day and included hunting, fishing and whaling scenes, city life and rural scenes, patriotic and historical events (including Lincoln’s assassination), clipper ships, yachts and steamships, Mississippi and Hudson River scenes, railroads, politics, comedy, gold mining, winter scenes, sporting events (including horse racing) portraits and still lifes.

The first print published in the style which made the firm famous was Ruins of the Planters Hotel, New Orleans, which fell at two O’clock, on the Morning of the 15th of May 1835, burying 50 persons, 40 of which escaped with their lives, which was published in 1835. Currier’s first financial success was a broadside of the sinking of the Lexington that was published in The New York Sun, which was the largest of New York City’s newspapers at the time. (According to company records, Currier’s presses ran day and night for months to fill the demand for the prints.) But among its most memorable and historically-significant prints are the 1958 Louis Maurer lithograph titled The American Firefighter, which was reprinted in 1886, and Currier & Ives’ 1862 print, Central Park Winter, The skating pond.

Nathaniel Currier died in 1888; James Merritt Ives in 1895. Although their sons ran the firm for a time after that, changing tastes and the advent of newer commercial processes such as photolithography finally forced Currier and Ives to close in 1907. Today, original Currier and Ives prints are highly prized by collectors. The winter scenes are especially popular and are often reproduced in Christmas cards.

A Word About Dali

Salvador Dali is best remembered for the contributions he made to the Surrealist movement between 1929 and his expulsion from the group in 1939. Inspired by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic studies and publications, Dali’s paintings during this period were small collages of his dream images. But the “unreal dream” space and hallucinatory characters he created were contradicted or counterbalanced by Renaissance-influenced classical technique. His major contribution to the Surrealist movement was what he called the “paranoic-critical method,” a mental exercise of accessing the subconscious to enhance artistic creativity. Dali produced his most famous painting during this time. Sometimes called Soft Watches, The Persistence of Memory (1931) conveys, among other themes, the central idea that time is not rigid and everything is destructible.

Following the end of World War II, Dali moved into a period he described as Nuclear Mysticism. During the next 15 years, Dali’s work expressed his overarching fascination with the power of the atom and the advances being made by modern science, particularly physics. Borrowing from painters of the Italian Renaissance, he employed his focused and deliberate artistic style to express these elements in an effort to demonstrate that proof of a divine power could be found in the unity between science and mysticism. The 19 museum-scale works Dali produced during this period thus incorporate optical illusions, holography and geometry that evince divine geometry, DNA, the Hyper Cube and religious themes.

From 1960 to 1974, Dali dedicated much of his time to creating the Teatro-Museo Dali in his hometown of Figueres, Spain. The museum was built from the ruins of a 19th century municipal theater that had been destroyed at the end of the Spanish Civil War and is reputed to be the world’s largest Surrealist structure (containing a series of spaces that form a single artistic object where each element is an inextricable part of the whole). It was during this time, that Dali experimented with lithography and produced the suite that pays tribute to Currier and Ives.

The artist was forced to retire from painting in 1980 due to a motor disorder that resulted in permanent trembling and weakness in his hands that deprived him of the ability to hold a paint brush. Dali died of heart failure nine years later at the age of 84.

While Dali has been credited with many significant artistic contributions, he is also remembered for his colorful personality and proclivity for self-promotion. Often sporting an exaggeratedly long mustache (in the tradition of painter Diego Velazquez), a cape and walking stick, Dali’s public appearances exhibited highly eccentric behavior. For example, when New York art dealer Julian Levy introduced Dali to America at a 1934 exhibition, Dali appeared in characteristic flamboyant style wearing a glass case across his chest that contained a brassiere. Another time, he delivered a lecture titled “Authentic paranoid ghosts” at the opening of the London Surrealist exhibition in 1936 while dressed in a wetsuit, carrying a billiard cue and walking a pair of Russian wolfhounds. He later said his attire was a depiction of “plunging into the depths” of the human mind.

A Word About Dali’s Lithography

Dali created prints using a medley of different techniques, including etchings, engravings, woodcuts, mixed media, lithography and photo-lithography. He created print images for literary works like Hamlet, The Old Man and The Sea and Alice in Wonderland, and he worked on one hundred wood block prints for an edition of The Divine Comedy. The prints from this period, which collectors refer to as the Golden Age of the 196os, showcase his legendary imagination and portray the unconscious world of dreams, thoughts, and perceptions.

Publishers produced his prints both as individual sheets and as series in the forms of portfolios or illustrations in limited edition books. Flower Man, Dream Passage, Symphony Bicyclette, The Studio of Dali, Head of a Young Girl, Immaculate Conception, The Drawers of Memory, Fantastic Voyage, The Lucky Number of Salvador Dali, and The Persistence of Memory are some of his best works.

Forged Dali Prints

Dali’s great popularity and marketability made him irresistible to art forgers. When the source of new prints dried out due to the artist’s involuntary retirement in 1980, fakes began to appear on the market. Bogus Dali prints were produced in different variations:

• new print images that the artist had never made
• prints “after” Dali paintings or drawings sold as originals
• extended editions with forged signatures
• restrikes or facsimiles with forged signatures
• fake copies of real prints

Fortunately the two paper mills that manufactured nearly all of the papers used for Dali prints, changed their watermark signs in 1980 by adding an infinity symbol. Thus most fakes can be identified quite easily. Prints that bear the Rives or Arches watermark with the infinity sign and have Dali’s signatures are fakes as Dali did not sign any prints after 1980.

A second means of authenticating a purported Dali print is by referring to one of two catalog raisonnes. The first is Albert Field’s Official Catalog of the Graphic Works of Salvador Dali that was published by the Salvador Dali Archives Ltd. (ISBN 0-9653611-0-1 ) in 1996. The other is Ralf Michler’s Catalog Raisonne of Etchings and Mixed-Media Prints, 1924-1980” and Catalog Raisonne of Prints II, Lithographs and Wood Engravings.

Field has collected information about Dali prints and other works for over forty years with the approval of the artist. Field has cooperated with some 20 art fraud investigations by government agencies and has testified as an expert witness in court. He is regularly called on to authenticate Dali works for galleries and collectors. He also works closely with the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, to which he has willed his own large collection of the artist’s work. His catalog raisonne lists 1,700 genuine and authentic graphic works. Field groups them into original and cooperative prints. He defines original prints as those created by Salvador himself and cooperative prints as those supervised and approved by Dali. (The tome also makes reference to more than 400 dubious prints that collectors should avoid, prompting former chairman and director of the Dali Museum, A. Reynolds Morse, to call the catalog a vital weapon against counterfeiters. “Only the labors and scholarship of Mr. Field can begin to restore any kind of order to the vast world of Dali reproductive prints,” Morse wrote in an introduction to the book.)

In 1992 Lee Catterall published The Great Dali Fraud & Other Deceptions. As a result of the book, several art publishers and dealers and a former secretary of the artist were arrested and convicted. Fake Dali prints continue to circulate in the art market. Many are now offered on the Internet.

The Florida Gulf Coast University public art collection contains two paintings donated by former student and FGCU grad Pavol Roskovensky. Reflexive 0302200801 is an oil on canvas that is located in the 1st Floor Corridor of Whitaker Hall. Also an oil on canvas, Reflexive 0115200801 is on view on the second floor of Library West.

About His Art

Both paintings are from Roskovensky’s Reflexive Control series. As the name suggests, Roskovensky explores in the paintings from this series what happens when an artist cedes control during the creative process. “I have distanced myself from the idea of control and allowed for the natural force (which creates everything in the universe) to dictate my paintings – composition, and all of the minute details,” comments Roskovensky. Although he does guide the work and nudge it in certain directions, he does not try to control the image. “By doing this, my artwork has become more naturally alive and energetic.”

Implicit in this approach is Roskovensky’s conviction that true nature cannot be rendered on the plane of a picture by a human hand. By making himself more of spectator in the creative process, he allows nature to express itself. “For people viewing my art, I hope that they will experience the raw and powerful force of nature – nature itself, apart from what we are conditioned to see as nature.”

While Roskovensky starts his compositions without any premeditated idea of what he wants to create, he does admit to finding inspiration in rock formations, fire and the constantly changing shapes of clouds. Even a stain, shadow or wrinkle in his canvas can spark the creative cycle. “I feel that in a way, the painting that is not yet created is already there. I just can’t see it. But it’s really there. I just focus on that and really listen to the painting and what it’s trying to tell me. Basically, that’s the way the canvas tells me what it wants, really. But the initial act of creating or starting a piece is completely and absolutely spontaneous.”

Although he began his formal art education at the age of four, he did not begin exploring abstract art seriously until he took part in an artist residency in Giverny, France in 2006. “Abstraction provides me with a method of liberating images from representational form and has served as my mode of thinking about fracture and disconnection in the context of human relationships and global communities,” Roskovensky says.

Roskovensky also had the good fortune of participating in another residency in Beijing during the Summer Olympics the city hosted in 2008. “Just as I observed an unraveling of social interactions in China’s chaotic metropolis during the frenzy of the summer games, I began to abstract my canvases in an almost violent manner,” the artist expounds. “Pulling apart my canvases thread by thread, I freed the material of its structure and was left with a pile of autonomous strands dotted with various colors. I then used these threads to construct new abstractions by rearranging the strands in various formats to produce new paintings and installations.”

Roskovensky has recently begun to integrate braille into his compositions as both an aesthetic and conceptual element. “I disassociate braille letters from their function as tactile language by using the patterns of dots as a purely visual component,” he notes. “As the meaning of these markings are obscured for non-braille speakers, and likewise rendered illegible to those versed in braille due to their lack of texture, communication itself is abstracted.” As a consequence, the resulting paintings serve as metaphors for human disconnection in our seemingly interconnected global community. “In today’s age of technology, when channels of communication are abundant, I find that we are more resistant to connect to others than ever before.”

About the Artist

Originally from the Czech Republic, Roskovensky currently lives and works in Boston. In addition to Florida Gulf Coast University, he has formally studied art at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In addition to exhibitions in Florida, Washington D.C., New York and Boston, he has exhibited in Bardejov, Slovenia, Giverny, France and Beijing, China. Roskovensky’s intent is to get people to question aspects of their lives which typically go unexamined. Among the recurring themes he explores through his art are love, death and human relationships.