More Art in Public Places

Paul Braun explains, “Sculpture is about creating form in which the artist demonstrates control, balance, and mystery.” The carved abstract symbols and organic patterns inspired by Celtic carvings and ancient stone formations, such as Stonehenge. Soapstone has been used for carving for thousands of years by artisans throughout the world. Braun intentionally left the stone rough in some places to reveal the natural beauty of the material.

BJ Katz is a leader in the kiln-fired art glass industry. Inspired by the rich quality of sunlight in Florida, the artist created a work of art based on sunshine. Sun Salutations hangs under the glass ceiling of the library and is illuminated by natural light during the daytime. Light quality, viewer perspective, and light refraction make this piece appear to change; on a sunny day the piece looks different than on a cloudy day.

Stepping Stones is a series of trompe l’oeil or “fool the eye” paintings depicting irregular groupings of stones painted directly on the floor tiles. Nofa Dixon is known for painterly surfaces on three-dimensional clay forms. The artist also uses two-dimensional formats with “the intent of pushing the clay medium to new levels of form and embellishment.”

SquirrelyQ is suspended across the glass facade of the building in five vertical columns. The fused glass, or glass that has been fired in a kiln at a range of high temperatures from 1,100°F to 1,500°F, is brightly colored and interestingly textured. The use of dichroic glass introduces an iridescent surface that creates a luminous effect in natural and artificial light. Additionally, Liz Mapelli was commissioned to create Deepest Secrets, a mosaic of glass tiles, for Baptist Hospital South in Jacksonville, Florida in 2005.

“I create works of art designed to give meaning and to identity public spaces,” Barbara Grygutis writes. Her sculpture depicts a baseball player in classic uniform, framed by the outline of a baseball trading card. Here Grygutis celebrates both the great American pastime and the shared nostalgia of collecting baseball cards. Her installation is complemented by granite benches shaped like baseballs- creating a gathering place for people to meet at a game.

Segal was confronted with a difficult task – to create a piece that would serve as both an artwork and as identification for the building. He chose to create one vertical sculpture while another horizontal sculpture doubles as a sign for the library and community center. Both illustrate Segal’s trademark minimalism and hand-worked surfaces. In this work and others, the artist strips away the surface of the material to reveal what lies beneath, much like the erosive processes in nature. Both pieces intentionally complement the exterior of the library.

David Olson describes the work as, “abstract gestural starfield with constellations and a copper river undulating through the center.” The title of this work, Meander, refers to the windings of a river or the act of wandering. Like the title suggests, library is a place to wander and discover, a place where facts and imagination meet.

“All of the wonderful things that we can find in the world of imagination can be found between the pages of a book,” Kelli Bickman writes. This whimsical and colorful mural depicts children engaged in reading to illustrate the power of books, the magic of libraries, and the importance of imagination. Bickman is not only a painter but has published her own book of photographs (What I Thought I Saw) in addition to illustrating and designing book jackets for several notable authors.

Allison Watson, a lifelong resident of North Florida, is renowned for large-scale landscape scenes in Florida and the South. Watson paints from her own photographs of local sites as well as remote locations around the world. Haven Creek depicts woodlands found in Western Duval County.
 

The Artist creates this allegory through architectural references, portraits of famous Jacksonville personalities and writers, and illustrations of literary works by Jacksonville authors.  The city’s beginnings as Cowford, as well as the contemporary skyline are part of this visual exploration of Jacksonville’s culture and history.
Working with local historians and community leaders, Kathryn Freeman used local architecture as the framework for the murals. In response to her invitation, over 1000 school students wrote the artist regarding their favorite books, characters, and the authors which the artist incorporated into the work. The murals include authors with ties to Jacksonville, characters from children’s classics, historic civic leaders, and favorite local pastimes.

Al Held is well-known for his large-scale paintings of abstract geometric forms. Like many painters in the 1950s-1960s, Held reacted against the spontaneity and disorder of gestural Abstract Expressionist painters such as Jackson Pollock. The artist was originally commissioned to create four paintings for the Library’s Grand Reading Room, but only one was completed before his death in July 2005. The artwork was funded by a gift from the Jacksonville Public Library Foundation.

Roxanne Hovarth and Peter Rumpel are local artists/architects. No Couch Potatoes Here is a group of three oversized chairs designed to attract visitors to the outdoor amphitheater and to encourage interaction with the work. The backrests of each chair/throne feature abstract shapes related to football, basketball, and tennis – all of which are after-school activities at the PAL. Horvath and Rumpel also designed the Richard and Annette Bloch Cancer Survivors Park on State Street in downtown Jacksonville.

This large-scale glass sculpture is suspended from the ceiling of the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts. The spiral form is reminiscent of a corkscrew, twists of a rollercoaster, or rolling waves of water. Funded by Brumos Motor Cars, Inc. and presented as a gift to the City of Jacksonville, the work was created by Jacksonville University faculty and students. It weighs approximately 4,000 pounds and consists of more than 300 individual glass horns.

David Griggs’ birds appear to fly around the exterior tower and encircle the rotunda, casting colored shadows and creating a sense of dynamic movement. The design was intended to engage children, parents, neighbors, staff, and visitors with a playful and welcoming presence. Griggs’ interest in creating a sense of movement with stationary sculpture can be seen in other works, such as a suspended atrium sculpture at a fitness center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In Circ de Vie, Sarah Crooks Flaire explores the natural world by combining figurative drawings with botanical imagery completing a bountiful circle of life. This monumental puzzle painting incorporates three-dimensional cutouts of the five elements (water, fire, earth, wind and space) and is a visual celebration of the diversity of living things.

Susan Cooper’s three-part installation was inspired by the rich history of art, music, and film at the theatre. She uses light and color as her predominate artistic media. Eight aluminum wall-mounted sculptures depict abstractions of film, music, art, and water. A sculpture made from woven, colored LED light tubes wraps around the southwest corner of the building, while an installation of crisscrossed lights projects onto the top level of the building – viewable from a considerable distance. Cooper was inspired by MaVynee Betsch, better known as the Beach Lady, who worked for over 30 years to preserve American Beach, one of the few beaches open to African-Americans from the 1930’s-1960’s. Like Betsch’s complex hairstyle, Cooper braids metal, color, and light to reflect the Beach Lady’s intertwining of history and culture.

Artist Brower Hatcher was inspired by the tree imagery Rev. Barnum McCarthy used in Fowler’s eulogy – “She may have been known as a Steel Magnolia, but to me she was a mighty oak. She reached out in all directions, gracing everything she touched. She always made a difference.” Fowler served as Jacksonville’s first female City Council President from 1982-1985 and later served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. When she retired in 2000, Fowler was the highest ranking woman in the U.S. Congress and received the Navy’s Distinguished Public Service Award and the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. Fowler joined the Washington D.C. office of Holland & Knight in 2001, and died in March 2005.

In 1918, the Rotary Club of Jacksonville  was instrumental in organizing a community-wide effort to create Memorial Park to honor the 1200  Floridians who died in World War I.
The year 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding  of the Rotary Club of Jacksonville Florida’s first club. This monument  recognizes Rotary’s contribution and commitment to service above self.