Creating art for public spaces is some of our most creative and challenging work. It's our experience that successful public art has several common denominators. First, the goals of the project are identified at the beginning so that the execution of the work satisfies those goals. Community input and engagement is important, should be facilitated and structured with specific starting and ending points in the process. Good public art enhances and doesn't compete with the natural and architectural environment. It speaks to viewers in different ways depending on their perspective, and reaches a wide audience through some degree of personal association or connection. It is the combination of intent, input, aesthetics of the location, experience and ideas of the artist that work together to influence a successful project.

Our approach to any site-specific project typically follows a similar path. To generate ideas we start with extensive research to gain an understanding of the location, the desires of the community, and the needs of the stakeholders. Our ideas evolve from an understanding of those factors, and are combined with our own sense of design and creativity. Existing components of the environment - colors, shapes, architecture and nature influence the design process. Active participation of those involved - committees, community, client - is critical in informing the direction of the design.

"The Ringers" (click to enlarge). This concept was selected as the winning entry in an international public art competition for Jefferson Center in Austin, TX. Two 35 ft. traffic roundabouts located on the main street of a new multi-use community became horseshoe pits - with 17 ft. tall welded steel representations of a horseshoe game in process. The sculptures are set in river gravel, which appears as giant sand in a horseshoe pit and are lit at night.
The design of the monumental sculptures was influenced by a variety of sources - Guliver's Travels and the Lilliputians, Paul Bunyan and his tall tales, Texas and its larger than life persona, and Klaus Oldenberg - the modernist sculptor who turned everyday objects into monumental sculpture. The simplified geometric forms also mimic large modernist figures by artists such as Alexander Calder, David Smith, and Picasso, and contemporary sculptors like Joel Shapiro and Mark Di Suvero.

Griffin sculptures - commissioned by the Shaw Neighborhood Beautification Committee in St. Louis, MO. The griffin symbol is historic in this neighborhood; these griffins were designed and built using the griffin sculptures in historic Tower Grove Park as a reference. (enlarge)

Welded steel bench
award winning design fabricated for Arts in Transit, Bi-State Development Agency, St. Louis, MO. (enlarge)