Tag Archives: Sarasota Public Art

Lily in “Tickle Me”

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My very favorite alligator “Lily”  is a pleasure to play with.  I introduced her into my work as  “The Waiter Gator” when I was the artist of the year for the Florida WineFest.

Her 3 dimensional debut came in 2012.  The alligator became a public art installation on Palm Avenue in the City of Sarasota.

Her suave figure has appeared in a number of illustrations….

 

Last month Lily was again cut from aluminum plate and finished as a four foot by eight foot sculpture named appropriately – “Tickle Me”.

Creating a Public Art Installation……

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The Passengers

The sculpture was approved by the City of Sarasota’s Public Art Committee February 2012 and installed April 2012.

Re-imagining the feeling of arrival, the expectation and anticipation of coming to Sarasota in the 1920′s,  The Passengers sculpture becomes a visual reminder of the former use of the site as the Atlantic Seaboard Railway Depot.  The elements of the piece create a larger than life vignette that draws on the new building’s distinctive architectural features adding dimension and reality to the sculpture.

Click on the first photo to start the slide show……..

Commission site – Kane Plaza, east end of Main Street, Sarasota, Florida
Site of Sarasota’s 1925 railroad staion
Historical marker on the site
Evaluating the human scale with the building scale
Sketching the elements, creating a story
Engineering the elements to provide balance and security
Loading the drawings into the computer for execution
Cutting the elements from 4×8 sheets of aluminum plate…. Notice the pool in the rear of the photo where each element is cut
After cutting, each is examined and approved by the artist and metal fabricators
Counting! Hoping none were missed!
Waiting for welds
Each element required a number of brackets for fastening the installation to the wall of the building
Detail of welded brackets
The welding of the brackets causes the plate to bump out wherever a bracket is adheared to it. Each piece had to be sanded to create a smooth surface for the application of the powder coating
The luggage element waits for a ride to the powder coater – next step
The elements are unloaded at the powder coaterwder coater
The finished pieces are delivered to the installation site
Awaiting installation
Lining up and measuring the space for the tenth time!
Installation of the first element, the step
All of the remaining elements are installed forward of the step
Lining up the figure elements
It was a put-up, take down proces to be sure every element was positioned in context to one another
Realigning again……….
The brackets were designed in such a way as to seemingly disappear from view
No question, it is a tedious process
Installation completed!
The Plaque
Elements seem to float
Site work and new landscaping
The artist with her piece
By holding the elements away from the wall a distance a deeper profile and stronger appearance was accomplished for the vignette
And………scaling the figures to the building proportions was an important factor in the design
Walking away…….
Looking back from a distance
The entire site
Location of sculpture at the east end of Sarasota’s Main Street

 

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Pass6_13

The Passengers

The sculpture was approved by the City of Sarasota’s Public Art Committee February 2012 and installed April 2012.

The sculpture is a site-specific piece commissioned for the parking structure located at the eastern most end of Sarasota, Florida’s Main Street.  It is a wall hung, multi-element sculpture fabricated from aluminum plate and powder-coated.  

Re-imagining the feeling of arrival, the expectation and anticipation of coming to Sarasota in the 1920’s,  The Passengers sculpture becomes a visual reminder of the former use of the site as the Atlantic Seaboard Railway Depot.  The elements of the piece create a larger than life vignette that draws on the new building’s distinctive architectural features adding dimension and reality to the sculpture.