www.culturalquarterly.org
Fall 2009 | Volume XXII, Number 3

Public Art & Design Update

Island Garden Installed at Long Key Natural Area and Nature Park
Artist Lorna Jordan’s architectural sculpture artwork Island Garden was completed in August at Long Key Nature Center and Natural Area in Davie. Jordan incorporated a broad range of elements, including pavilions, bridges, gathering spaces, towers, pathways, art elements around the site, gardens and water features. Approximately 120 feet long by 88 feet wide, Island Garden’s visual interpretation is reminiscent of patterns in nature such as spirals, branches and partitions.

This artwork is consistent with the Broward County Park Bond Master Plan - Theatre of Regeneration: towards an aesthetic of layers, loops and lenses, a 20-year plan for parks and natural areas in Broward County. Jordan’s brilliant art master plan included layers of meaning, loops of physical and process-based connections and lenses of jewel-like artworks, performances and activities - with a particular focus on watersheds, the natural infrastructure of creeks, rivers, wetlands, ponds and estuaries.

Artist Michele Oka Doner Installs Artwork at Port Everglades, Terminal 18
Artist Michele Oka Doner’s artwork Forces of Nature: Trade Winds & Ocean is located on the main floor of Terminal 18 in Port Everglades. Passengers embarking on cruises will experience the artwork at close range, while early arriving passengers seated in the mezzanine waiting area can enjoy looking down on it. Bronze inlays celebrate the diversity of seeds and pods that drift far and wide on ocean currents to wash up on South Florida shores. A large bronze globe sculpture anchors the other end of the design and swirling aggregates such as mother-of-pearl stand out in sparkling contrast to the dark green and blue terrazzo matrix.

The concept creates a “well-traveled” floor, a work of art embedded in the building itself and accessible to every arriving passenger. Deep green and blue terrazzo matrices in an approximately 3,000-square-foot area contain a lively narrative.

The composition in the floor consists of two arenas of focus. In the wider section of the footprintloor, an 8-foot diameter globe in cast bronze is depicted in a spinning manner. The globe is energized with crisscrossed longitudinal and latitudinal lines. Enhancing the movement are great sweeps of iridescent mother-of-pearl, simulating the trade winds that circle the earth. The mother-of-pearl aggregates vary in color – white to pink and silver - scale and proportion, adding a kind of cosmic delight.

In the narrower portion of the floor, swirls of aggregates representing ocean currents pick up the sense of motion begun by the spinning globe., carried by the winds and resulting in a wave-like pattern. Consecutive wavy lines, executed in exquisite aggregate, delineate a new region, approximately 25 feet in dimension. This area contains the seedbed of more than approximately 175-25025 units depicted in cast bronze. The forms are drawn from actual seeds from the multitude that are known to drift far and wide in the currents. The seeds vary in scale from 6 inches to 20 inches and reveal textures, patterns and shapes of exceptional variety.

The composition in its entirety is buoyant and dramatic, a work of art that speaks of travel by wind, currents and ultimately boarding the ship. The opening of Passenger Terminal 18 makes Fort Lauderdale accessible to the largest ocean liner in the world, Oasis of the Seas; the terminal will now become the largest single-ship cruise terminal in the world.

Natural Forces –Broward County Public Art and Design ’06 - ’09
Our county’s wide array of public art is the focus of a new exhibition, Natural Forces: Broward County Public Art & Design ’06 - ’09. The show is a compilation of completed public art projects by national and internationally renowned artists who were selected and commissioned to create public art through the Broward Cultural Division’s Public Art & Design Program. Included are drawings, models and other preparatory works done for these commissions, which reveal important aspects of the creative process. Video documentaries and photographs highlight how these large-scale artworks connect with the public – and vice versa.

Natural Forces showcases an extensive mixture of artistic expression, with nature at the center. It is a culmination of creative minds focused on the future by bringing awareness and art into the present - the light on water at sunset; the refraction of color through glass that forms waves; words engraved into stone.

Many of the artworks were designed within the portfolio of the Park Bond Master Plan and Library Bond Master Plan. The Park Bond Master Plan was authored by environmental artist Lorna Jordan and her design team. Jordan, concerned with the artistic expression of contemporary places with a particular focus on watershed, explored the relationships between natural infrastructure of creeks, rivers, wetlands, ponds and estuaries and the urban infrastructure. The Library Bond passed in 1999 when voters of Broward County approved a bond issue to provide financing to renovate existing libraries and build new ones. Artists were commissioned within this portfolio.

The exhibit opened September 4 and will run through November 1 at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, located at 1650 Harrison St. in Hollywood, It will continue from JanuaryMarch 4 through April 24, 2010 at the Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Dr., in Coral Springs.

Michelle Guarino’s Artwork Featured at Lee Wagener Art Gallery
The Broward County Cultural Division’s Public Art and Design Program is presenting Kinetic Energy, an exhibition by Broward-based artist Michelle Guarino, at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The exhibition in the Lee Wagener Art Gallery, Terminal 2, Departure Level, runs for four months.

A contemporary photographic artist, Michele Guarino was exposed introduced to art at an early age while traveling through Europe. Her formal training includes studies at the New School of Social Research in New York City, the Southeast Center for Photo/Graphics and the University of Miami. Her photography is exhibited widely in Florida and she has won numerous awards.

After the death of her mother in 2004, Guarino found great inspiration in nature and continues to explore the relationship between life, light and color. Believing that water is among our most valued resources and a gift of life, she notes that “water is the foundation of all human existence, important enough to sustain life yet deadly enough to extinguish it! Delicate enough to bend light rays into a magnificent rainbow yet powerful enough to carve deep massive canyons in solid rock. With the transmission of water in its multiple forms, it tends to govern all of the energy and movement we experience. It stores enough fuel (hHydrogen) to supply the Earth's energy needs for thousands of years yet is gentle enough to wash a new born baby.” The artworks Singular Element, Private Island and Closely Connected will be shown at the Lee Wagener Art Gallery.

The Lee Wagener Art Gallery offers Broward County artists an opportunity to exhibit their work in a prominent, pre-security, high-traffic area in Terminal 2 of the airport departure level that is accessible to the public. Artists are selected through the Public Art ∧ Design Program and exhibits are changed every four months. The far end of the gallery has been reserved for the exhibition of video artworks from Broward County’s permanent art collection. At present, Tree Rain, by Broward-based artists Suzanne Scherer and Pavel Ouporov, has been installed as the permanent video artwork.

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