Work is continuing on the 9/11 Memorial sculpture. Lots and lots of parts for this public art…

LA Times article

We thought we’d spend Memorial Day this year grilling at the sculpture studio and having a little fun spicing up the exterior wall of the studio’s parking lot. For no good reason other than to entertain ourselves, we painted a 16-foot-tall blue gecko with a fully three-dimensional yellow eye peering over the gate out into the street. Studio gecko is watching you!

One-minute time-lapse video of a day-and-a-half installation of a 20-foot long by 6-foot tall sculpture. 1500 pounds of aluminum, a few hundred pounds of steel, and three polished granite hemispheres. Installed in a building lobby in Los Angeles, CA.

Currently we’re in the process of making a 9/11 Memorial Sculpture, and I have a section of an I-beam from the World Trade Center. It’s sobering to look at this thing and think about the fact that this was a strong, straight beam prior to the attacks of 9/11/2001. Part of the process of making this public sculpture involved turning the one length of beam into three: we have a fourteen-foot long section of I-beam, and need one ten-foot section for the sculpture itself, then two smaller sections that will be used for indoor displays about 9/11.

I made a short time-lapse video of the process mostly using a camera we recently set up in the studio to document the progress of sculpture projects. It’s less than two minutes long, but covers the entire process of cutting and slightly smoothing the raw edges (so they won’t cut anyone that touches the beam):

LA Times article

If I do say so myself, this sculpture is starting to look really sexy. I can’t wait to get it all installed. Check out the video below to see how the light plays across the surface:

The mounting system for installing this sculpture is ready. Now they just need a light coat of flat black paint. This photo is of a bunch of them all stacked up, and yes, it’s confusing when you see it like this — suffice it to say, though, that even though you’ll never see these parts once the installation of this public art is complete, they are vital to holding it all together, and every little detail has been worked out. Since you’ll never see this part, why am I showing a photo of them all stacked together here? Well, because I thought it looked cool. 🙂

This sculpture installation should be happening in the coming couple of weeks, as soon as the building construction is far enough along for us to come in and install this art. So for now, maybe just one more teaser…

Lots and lots and lots of aluminum polishing going on here. Here’s another “teaser” shot of a stack of a few of the parts for this sculpture:

Work is continuing on this new piece of public art, and it’s really starting to shine! Very excited about this sculpture, just a few more weeks until the installation…

240 aluminum parts to polish… installation coming up at the end of the month. I’m really excited about this sculpture. More to come…