In March 2020, I was chosen by Etna Community Organization to create sculptures for the future Etna EcoPark at Grant Avenue and Wilson Street. We had initially planned to involve local Etna teens from Shaler School District in the design process, but due to the pandemic, the design integration process shifted to virtual facilitation by the EcoPark committee, comprised of Etna residents Mary Ellen Ramage (our superstar borough manger), Jessica Semler and Dave Becki (both Etna Ward 3 Councilpeople), Joyce Swope, Lydia Morin, and Judith Koch.
After much thoughtful discussion and idea sharing, the committee voted for a pair of human-sized, leaf-shaped aluminum frames with rotating enamel panels mounted inside them. The aluminum frames were fabricated by K&I Sheet Metal in Sharpsburg. Additional brainstorming, cheerleading, advice, and mechanical genius provided by my dear friends Adam Schreckhise and Amber Coppings.
The ten center panels were created from enameled copper using a range colors meant to complement flowers and plants of the rain garden that would the site of the sculptures. I created iron oxide waterslide decals from resident submissions of art, photography, and poetry and also utilizing historical images of Etna from an amazing digitized version of the Etna Bicentennial book, published in 1969.
The sculptures were installed in September 2021 and the official ribbon cutting for the Ecopark was October 9, 2021. (This post from ECO has a great synopsis on how the EcoPark as a whole was designed by residents and the process the borough took to acquire an abandoned property damaged by Hurricane Ida and turn it into an incredible site of both community-protecting stormwater-mitigating infrastructure AND a beautiful place for the community to enjoy.)
initial sculpture sketches
ecopark excavation--the dug-out area is where the rain garden will be installed
leaf motif sculpture variations
small test tile with printed map decals
EcoPark site digital mockup. This site presented quite the design challenge in that the sculptures needed to be of a large enough scale that they could be broadly noticed from a distance (lots of car traffic coming down Mt. Royal Blvd.) and to designate that SOMETHING was happening in a place that had been a NON-SPACE for 17 years. They also needed to have more subtle elements that could encourage further investigation from pedestrians and neighbors who would be encountering them every day.
Final design with "measurements." The 1.5' inner width was chosen because this is the maximum size piece my biggest kiln is capable of firing. After the design committee voted on these serviceberry leaf shapes, I worked backwards from that inner dimension to work out the sizes of everything else.
etna flats from little pine creek, summer 2020
sculpture frame!
sculpture frames on concrete footer day! Thanks to Etna Public Works for augering these 4' deep concrete footers and a hardy crew of volunteers who helped to mix and pour concrete!
here in Etna, we level our art with boulders and boards!
sculpture frames by lamplight--now that the bases have been set into the concrete, the sculpture frames were taken home to my studio so that I can continue working on the enamel panels!
center panels with paper templates
cutting center panels with jeweler's saw
cloud-shaped center panels cut and sanded and ready to be soldered and riveted to the center tubing
Big and small panel pieces sandwich the copper tubing which will eventually be how the panels are mounted on the center spindles. The annealed copper is so soft after multiple kiln and torch soldering rounds that I was able to bend the wing-tips with my hands.
In this case, the enameling starts with a two-three layers of white base coat to start to build up the surface, especially useful when enameling objects that aren't flat.
Panels in various states on top of my big kiln. The kiln's inner dimensions are 18x18" so the whole sculpture was scaled from that measurement.
Here's a layer of unfired seafoam enamel (it's glass powder that has a specific coefficient of expansion so as to be able to melt and expand and contract at the same rate as the copper), where you can see the rivets helping to hold it together.
The matte lemon areas are enamel paint--extra fine ground glass mixed with water that can be layered and used to create more details.
These green and light blue additions are meant to evoke trees and hills (green) and water (blue), both of which are abundant in Etna. Energy was an overall theme of the sculptures and celebrating the energy of the natural world felt like a good starting point. After each firing, they had to be soaked in a mild-acid bath to remove oxidation from the copper, then cleaned with soap (so that the acid didn't etch into the enamel glass), and then dried before the next layer could be added.
Several mint green panels with repeating-diamond sifted design. The diamonds represent the energy of a community: one diamond/one person, visually or politically makes a small statement, but en masse, unified, working together, each individual diamond becomes part of something bigger.
Concentric circles on the chartreuse panels. These were meant to look like ripples radiating out from a stone skipped in water (a good past time at Little Pine Creek, too). Another symbolic representation of energy--how one action can radiate outward and impact others. On the top panel, you can also see the first few decals that I fired.
These decals have been applied and are waiting to be fired. High contrast images make the best decals as it's the iron oxide in black toner that gets fired into the enamel to create the rust-colored image. Bird nest by Joyce Swope of Etna Print Circus, and hillside photo from the Etna Bicentennial Book (this hill was once called Kite Hill because residents and workers would literally go fly kites there before houses were built on it in the 1920s.)
A mix of fired and unfired decals. The Ram is the symbol of Etna--the mascot of the former Etna High School sports teams and current baseball team and maybe chosen as a likely inhabitant of our namesake, Mt. Etna in Italy. The photograph is Etna Borough playground, and the foliage was mainly picked to represent all of the tree-related street names in the Borough, including Oakland, Maplewood, Cherry, Hickory, Sycamore, Cherry, Pine, and Spruce...
Fired decals--more leaves to represent the streets, birds and bees by Joyce Swope, a painting by Ruth Brannigan, historic Etna images, and a rad photo by Robert Tuñón of Etna written at night with sparklers! The lightning bolt circles were an ECO design that I repurposed so that they could be another repeating motif and one that would be a more literal representation of energy!
Finally done and assembled!
Decals of historic Ochse Hall, the Union Hotel (both on Butler Street), leaves, hills, pink dotted pathways, and a poem by Judith Koch.
Great blue heron by Joyce Swope, 62nd Street Bridge/Allegheny River photo by Robert Tuñón, Etna Bicentennial Seal, and more hills, pathways, and water. The heron has become a symbol of Etna's revitalization and to the overall improved health and water quality of the Allegheny (still a long way to go though...)
Bird and bee by Joyce Swope, more tree streets and tree branches, and a photo of some asters at Eagle Canyon, one of my favorite wildflowers.
Tree roots, Etna horizon photo by Ruth Brannigan, Little Pine Creek photo by Judith Koch, and cursive script (center bottom) is the Etna Charter from 1869!
Finally installed in the EcoPark rain garden. Beautiful river rocks added by ECO volunteers!
Left sculpture finally installed!
Rainy day photo
Sunny day photo!