Grandmother Tree: From Inspiration to Installation
Custom Designed Tile Mural, Public Art
Our blog has closely followed the creation of several works of ceramic artwork that we installed at Chabot College after receiving their public art grant. Before any designs were drawn or tiles carved, Natalie and Cynthia traveled to the campus to find potential installation sites and gather inspiration from its spaces and its students.
Natalie and Cynthia also got to speak with students, who had influential requests:
“Give us beauty” and “a feeling that we are in nature.”“Remind us that we are HOME.”“Delight us with color to brighten our day.”“Don’t give us anything cliché.”
There were a lot of artistic possibilities at Chabot, but this location jumped out immediately – a towering orange wall in the midst of a wide open space in the newest building on campus, a faculty building. It begged for a custom designed tile mural of massive scale.
Like this perfect spot, it was hard to pass over images of the amazingly stoic and ancient redwood trees characteristic of northern California. A big, grand tree seemed the perfect symbol for this faculty space, representing knowledge and wisdom of generations and the ages in sculptural art.
Cynthia, our project designer, found a fitting design in an interesting way:
"When we were designing our proposal for this public art award we took one of our favorite trees and digitally stretched it onto this column. Shifting scale really changed the feeling of it; we loved the way it transformed the space and the column. The campus voted on their favorite ideas and then the arts committee gave us the go ahead. We were so psyched to take that digital concept and make it into a reality of ceramic artwork.
It was more than three times bigger than the trees we had been making so to accommodate it in our work space we sgraffito carved it in sections starting with the roots. Carving it was like a meditation on each aspect of the trees structure and the vital flow of energy which it embodies." - Cynthia Parker-Houghton
The finished sculptural art mural had 84 tiles, and at a total height of 252 inches, presented a totally new challenge of installation. So, we rented a mechanical lift, and the rest is history – or at least, a timelapse.
Timelapse: Ceramic Artwork Installation
See more images of our Grandmother Tree installation at Chabot College and all of our work on Pinterest.
Custom designed ceramic artwork, Public Art Installation