My First Off-Beach Artwork

When the California Academy of Sciences reopened after its dramatic redesign, they held a series of celebrations for which I was commissioned to create an artwork that would be placed within one of the fountain at the Music Concourse. For some reason they made a stage and so rather than look down on an artwork folks were looking obliquely at it- not the best perspective. This was in 2008, no drones yet, so I had to climb a tree to get this photo.

This was my first time creating an artwork off the beach. When I was first approached about this commission I really strained for what to do- bring a bunch of sand from the beach? No, I hadn’t begun creating with dry sand yet. Then it hit me to use inland natural materials. Seems like a no-brainer now, but it was a huge step forward for me.

I visited the various landscaping depots around Golden Gate Park to gather different colors of compost, and rode around with park staff to prune branches and leaves and gather pinecones and grass trimmings until I had a diverse collection of materials. Right around this time is when I first started branching off from purely geometric designs and had started experimenting with organic patterns. My inspiration was a braided flood plain as the base layer with curlicues made of various natural materials scattered throughout.