0:01:08.800,0:01:11.280
I think art is wonderful

0:01:11.280,0:01:14.000
because it's everything you've ever known,

0:01:14.000,0:01:16.280
and everything you've ever done

0:01:16.280,0:01:18.360
somehow percolating up,

0:01:18.360,0:01:21.386
working with ideas that you might want to explore.

0:01:22.520,0:01:24.480
And then you can just wake up one morning

0:01:24.480,0:01:25.982
and know what you want to do.

0:01:35.920,0:01:38.318
This is a very unusual art project.

0:01:39.720,0:01:42.000
I got a phone call out of the blue.

0:01:42.000,0:01:45.280
It was from an art consultant [br]in the city, wonderful woman.

0:01:45.280,0:01:47.880
And she said, "Congratulations, [br]you've been selected

0:01:47.880,0:01:51.140
to make an art work for the Frey Foundation

0:01:51.140,0:01:52.320
of the city of Grand Rapids."

0:01:52.320,0:01:55.600
and I said, "Well, what's the site?"

0:01:55.600,0:01:57.920
And it was one little corner.

0:01:57.920,0:02:00.160
It was called the "Percent for Art Corner"

0:02:00.160,0:02:07.000
of sort of a very tough park, [br]or what was left of a park.

0:02:07.000,0:02:09.720
There was a skating rink that [br]was in bad need of a repair.

0:02:09.720,0:02:13.720
And I said, "I don't believe an art work,

0:02:13.720,0:02:18.200
one singular object is going to help resolve

0:02:18.200,0:02:20.120
sort of the urban situation

0:02:20.120,0:02:23.200
of what this park is and is not doing,

0:02:23.200,0:02:26.720
but if the Frey Foundation is at all interested

0:02:26.720,0:02:31.040
in having me come in, having [br]the art act as a catalyst

0:02:31.040,0:02:37.720
to completely rework this park,

0:02:39.240,0:02:41.720
I would be extremely interested."

0:02:41.720,0:02:43.120
I think the idea of a skating rink

0:02:43.120,0:02:46.979
is something that just sort of piqued my fancy.

0:02:49.680,0:02:52.200
What I actually wanted to do

0:02:52.200,0:02:57.613
was take an idea of sculpture [br]and grow it into a park.

0:03:00.440,0:03:02.160
I didn't realize I was going to have to work

0:03:02.160,0:03:03.360
as an architect as well,

0:03:03.360,0:03:06.440
because the city then required [br]two or three buildings

0:03:06.440,0:03:08.440
to be part of the site.

0:03:09.680,0:03:12.760
A bandstand, a restroom facility,

0:03:12.760,0:03:14.523
I'll have put in all the lighting.

0:03:16.440,0:03:17.120
Yeah, it's not...

0:03:17.120,0:03:19.200
I wonder if you're gonna notice that.

0:03:19.200,0:03:20.900
That might be a good North Star.

0:03:20.900,0:03:21.860
<v Assistant>okay.</v>

0:03:21.860,0:03:22.840
<v ->Right?</v>

0:03:22.840,0:03:25.360
And so then we either go deep, deep blue.

0:03:25.360,0:03:27.320
Yeah, that works fine for the North Star,

0:03:27.320,0:03:28.260
because it's off-blue.

0:03:28.260,0:03:29.162
<v ->Okay.</v>

0:03:30.461,0:03:33.798
<v ->I'm really curious what this [br]looks like with ice on it.

0:03:35.290,0:03:37.288
We're soon gonna find out, with ice.

0:03:39.226,0:03:42.040
I sort of called this one [br]the three stages of water:

0:03:42.040,0:03:43.400
solid, liquid, and gas.

0:03:43.400,0:03:46.360
So the liquid is a water fountain

0:03:46.360,0:03:48.240
that's three feet above you.

0:03:48.240,0:03:51.880
A circle covered with water in [br]it flows off the front edge.

0:03:51.880,0:03:54.400
The mist or the gas fountain

0:03:54.400,0:03:57.480
is a ring of mist that'll come up,

0:03:57.480,0:03:59.880
and you could almost walk into the mist.

0:03:59.880,0:04:03.120
And of course, the ice is the ice skating rink.

0:04:03.120,0:04:05.440
The genesis started with water.

0:04:05.440,0:04:09.560
Grand Rapids actually took the [br]rapids out of the river there

0:04:09.560,0:04:11.400
for flooding reasons.

0:04:11.400,0:04:13.120
And I started to play with the idea

0:04:13.120,0:04:14.762
of bringing it back a little bit.

0:04:16.040,0:04:19.240
The starting of the rings, the terraced rings,

0:04:19.240,0:04:22.240
started as, if you took a drop of water

0:04:22.240,0:04:25.080
in the center of the pool, and let them come out,

0:04:25.080,0:04:28.120
and then it spun into an idea

0:04:28.120,0:04:32.040
of as much about astronomy and about the stars,

0:04:32.040,0:04:36.220
so it's almost like pulling [br]the stars into a pool of water.

0:04:36.220,0:04:40.000
It's sort of a reflection of [br]the night sky in the pool.

0:04:46.294,0:04:47.400
(group chuckling and chattering)

0:04:47.400,0:04:50.705
<v ->All right, this is it. [br]Now close your eyes.

0:04:52.190,0:04:56.377
<v ->Wow. This is not bad.</v>

0:04:56.377,0:05:00.256
(chattering)[br]Just be careful, Sarah.

0:05:03.325,0:05:08.463
Wow.[br](gentle music)

0:05:08.463,0:05:15.400
It's a piece that marks a very set point in time

0:05:15.400,0:05:20.364
and connects it back to a [br]set occurrence in nature.

0:05:29.640,0:05:31.866
(ice skater yells)

0:05:34.320,0:05:35.280
It's up and running.

0:05:35.280,0:05:38.000
The skating rink's actually up first,

0:05:38.000,0:05:42.614
and I'll go back in to fine-tune [br]the landscaping, the trees.

0:05:46.800,0:05:50.960
My sculptures deal with [br]naturally occurring phenomena,

0:05:50.960,0:05:54.720
and they are embedded and very closely aligned

0:05:54.720,0:05:59.640
with geology and landscape [br]and natural earth formations.

0:06:20.040,0:06:22.480
It's all about a play back and forth

0:06:22.480,0:06:28.080
between inside works and outside works,

0:06:28.080,0:06:34.540
all trying to capture the landscape.

0:06:50.160,0:06:51.520
This is a group of atlases.

0:06:51.520,0:06:53.960
I bought about ten old atlases.

0:06:53.960,0:07:00.000
And I started making these [br]landscapes, craters, in them.

0:07:00.000,0:07:02.800
So this one sort of has a double crater.

0:07:02.800,0:07:05.506
So you go past through the first crater,

0:07:07.320,0:07:10.600
and there's a little island, [br]and you open it to the island,

0:07:10.600,0:07:14.880
and I'll make it more complex [br]island geography here,

0:07:14.880,0:07:16.337
which is what's going on.

0:07:17.120,0:07:20.800
So much of my artwork is very [br]large-scale outdoor works

0:07:20.800,0:07:24.240
that I like to retreat into the studio

0:07:24.240,0:07:27.240
and make a lot of the work myself.

0:07:27.240,0:07:29.520
And the trouble is the outdoor works

0:07:30.080,0:07:32.400
and the architecture tends to take up all my time,

0:07:32.400,0:07:36.200
so I find it very hard, as a struggle,

0:07:36.200,0:07:38.320
to be able to come back here and do this.

0:07:38.320,0:07:41.360
This is like the first work [br]I've done in a little while.

0:07:41.360,0:07:42.897
It's terrible.

0:07:42.897,0:07:43.397
(cat meows)

0:07:53.049,0:07:57.480
We have gone through a period [br]in art and architecture,

0:07:57.480,0:08:00.440
I think, modernity, industrialization,

0:08:00.440,0:08:02.392
which allowed for specialization.

0:08:04.000,0:08:07.920
There are very few architects [br]who are also solidly,

0:08:08.480,0:08:09.280
have a gallery.

0:08:09.800,0:08:11.320
Part of me is an artist.

0:08:11.320,0:08:13.419
The other part of me builds architecture.

0:08:20.800,0:08:25.040
I'm not at all wanting to have a large practice.

0:08:25.040,0:08:26.920
I don't want to practice architecture.

0:08:26.920,0:08:29.240
I love building a few buildings.

0:08:29.240,0:08:32.000
So I have to be very careful what I take on.

0:08:32.000,0:08:34.637
I've done some works that are extremely public

0:08:35.400,0:08:37.080
and extremely well-known,

0:08:37.080,0:08:39.600
and I think had I not done the Vietnam Memorial

0:08:39.600,0:08:44.120
and come out with the body of [br]work that since has come out,

0:08:44.120,0:08:46.080
I would have been able to be called an artist

0:08:46.080,0:08:47.800
about five years sooner.

0:08:47.800,0:08:50.600
But because I had done the Vietnam Memorial,

0:08:50.600,0:08:53.120
it was like, "Oh, you make monuments,"

0:08:53.120,0:08:55.243
whatever that means.

0:08:56.480,0:08:59.440
I mean, look at that one, the biggest one.

0:09:00.285,0:09:02.079
Dee-dee-dee-dee.

0:09:02.945,0:09:03.975
Dee-dee-dee.

0:09:06.800,0:09:09.200
I don't think I woke up one day and said,

0:09:09.200,0:09:14.280
"Oh, I'm going to be an artist [br]on some days and an arch..."

0:09:14.280,0:09:16.720
It was more I couldn't choose between the two,

0:09:16.720,0:09:18.880
nor did I choose to blend them.

0:09:19.480,0:09:21.447
You might be able to do this better than me.

0:09:24.560,0:09:30.370
It's taken me a body of work [br]to see how I am developing.

0:09:47.200,0:09:47.940
<v Acquaintance>I don't think so.</v>

0:09:47.940,0:09:51.080
<v ->No, it's solid, it's totally solid.</v>

0:09:51.377,0:09:53.057
It's been on for an hour now.

0:09:53.840,0:09:55.240
It's kind of surreal.

0:09:55.240,0:09:57.154
I really want to make this piece.

0:09:58.680,0:10:02.219
I'm actually playing with [br]the idea of taking this idea

0:10:03.600,0:10:08.080
and creating a work out of recycled rubber,

0:10:08.080,0:10:09.920
calling it "Playground."

0:10:09.920,0:10:12.560
It will be twice as big

0:10:12.560,0:10:15.400
as the untitled topographic landscape,

0:10:15.400,0:10:17.034
and kids can play on it.