Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Final Essay - AS #6 blog


           For my essay I went and examined a sculpture on Green River Campus that is near the center of the campus.  It is an art installation that is one of my favorite art pieces.  The sculpture was co-designed by an artist by the name of Ted Jonsson.  The Seattle Solstice was the fabricator of this piece.  It contains two main pieces that each serve a purpose in the piece of art.  There is a water wall that is and S shape and it is a beautiful black piece of granite.  Water is constantly coming down both sides of the wall.  There are grooved surfaces in the granite.  This unique feature creates random designs and patterns from the water that makes it illuminate when the Sun shines on it.  When the water creates random designs or patterns there are a few Gestalt principles that happen.  There is similarity by the repeating patterns in the water.  The water patterns also create continuance.  There is also grouping by shape and form, and grouping by orientation.  The Sun gives the black piece of granite a very elegant glossy look to the granite.  There are also tiles located on the granite wall and they are designated for donors that give money to Green River Community College.  By the piece of granite wall there is a marble looking piece of stone that looks like it weighs thousands of pounds.  The stone is in the shape of a sphere.  The marble looking stone settles in carved area where it sits and can be rotated or moved by water coming up from underneath it.  Because it rotates by the water it creates an effect just like the stone wall.  The water on the surface of it illuminates the stone when the Sun is out with vibrant Sun colors.    While researching about this piece and the artist, I found out about some really interesting facts about the piece of art.  I found out that the marble looking stone is carved out of Meta-Volcanic Greenstone.  The water underneath the stone is constantly able to give it water underneath through the use of water pressure.  The water is constantly streaming up from a recycling pump and it uses a minimal daily amount of water to keep it running.  The polished greenstone sphere weighs approximately 5,500 pounds and is kept afloat by very little water pressure.  This piece is a very organic piece of art.  It is an organic piece because of all of the elements that are used to make this piece.  All of the pieces come from nature.  The stone that floats from water pressure gives a sense of balance to the piece.  The artist, Ted Jonsson, is a Seattle artist that usually works with "junk art."  This is an art form that involves an artist using objects that people would normally consider junk and throw away.  He takes "junk" objects and creates a piece of art out of anything that he can find.  This artist Jonsson has a couple other pieces around the Seattle area.  He has been producing public art since the 1970’s.  Overall, I really like this monument that is located at Green River.  It is nice to know that people’s art appreciation is still there even though it doesn’t seem like it sometimes.





Works Cited




http://www.greenriver.edu/friends_alumni/foundation/kennelly_commons.shtm

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