WEBVTT 00:01:08.800 --> 00:01:11.280 I think art is wonderful 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:14.000 because it's everything you've ever known, 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:16.280 and everything you've ever done 00:01:16.280 --> 00:01:18.360 somehow percolating up, 00:01:18.360 --> 00:01:21.386 working with ideas that you might want to explore. 00:01:22.520 --> 00:01:24.480 And then you can just wake up one morning 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:25.982 and know what you want to do. 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:38.318 This is a very unusual art project. 00:01:39.720 --> 00:01:42.000 I got a phone call out of the blue. 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:45.280 It was from an art consultant  in the city, wonderful woman. 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:47.880 And she said, "Congratulations,  you've been selected 00:01:47.880 --> 00:01:51.140 to make an art work for the Frey Foundation 00:01:51.140 --> 00:01:52.320 of the city of Grand Rapids." 00:01:52.320 --> 00:01:55.600 and I said, "Well, what's the site?" 00:01:55.600 --> 00:01:57.920 And it was one little corner. 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.160 It was called the "Percent for Art Corner" 00:02:00.160 --> 00:02:07.000 of sort of a very tough park,  or what was left of a park. 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.720 There was a skating rink that  was in bad need of a repair. 00:02:09.720 --> 00:02:13.720 And I said, "I don't believe an art work, 00:02:13.720 --> 00:02:18.200 one singular object is going to help resolve 00:02:18.200 --> 00:02:20.120 sort of the urban situation 00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:23.200 of what this park is and is not doing, 00:02:23.200 --> 00:02:26.720 but if the Frey Foundation is at all interested 00:02:26.720 --> 00:02:31.040 in having me come in, having  the art act as a catalyst 00:02:31.040 --> 00:02:37.720 to completely rework this park, 00:02:39.240 --> 00:02:41.720 I would be extremely interested." 00:02:41.720 --> 00:02:43.120 I think the idea of a skating rink 00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:46.979 is something that just sort of piqued my fancy. 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:52.200 What I actually wanted to do 00:02:52.200 --> 00:02:57.613 was take an idea of sculpture  and grow it into a park. 00:03:00.440 --> 00:03:02.160 I didn't realize I was going to have to work 00:03:02.160 --> 00:03:03.360 as an architect as well, 00:03:03.360 --> 00:03:06.440 because the city then required  two or three buildings 00:03:06.440 --> 00:03:08.440 to be part of the site. 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:12.760 A bandstand, a restroom facility, 00:03:12.760 --> 00:03:14.523 I'll have put in all the lighting. 00:03:16.440 --> 00:03:17.120 Yeah, it's not... 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:19.200 I wonder if you're gonna notice that. 00:03:19.200 --> 00:03:20.900 That might be a good North Star. 00:03:20.900 --> 00:03:21.860 <v Assistant>okay.</v> 00:03:21.860 --> 00:03:22.840 <v ->Right?</v> 00:03:22.840 --> 00:03:25.360 And so then we either go deep, deep blue. 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:27.320 Yeah, that works fine for the North Star, 00:03:27.320 --> 00:03:28.260 because it's off-blue. 00:03:28.260 --> 00:03:29.162 <v ->Okay.</v> 00:03:30.461 --> 00:03:33.798 <v ->I'm really curious what this  looks like with ice on it. 00:03:35.290 --> 00:03:37.288 We're soon gonna find out, with ice. 00:03:39.226 --> 00:03:42.040 I sort of called this one  the three stages of water: 00:03:42.040 --> 00:03:43.400 solid, liquid, and gas. 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:46.360 So the liquid is a water fountain 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:48.240 that's three feet above you. 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:51.880 A circle covered with water in  it flows off the front edge. 00:03:51.880 --> 00:03:54.400 The mist or the gas fountain 00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:57.480 is a ring of mist that'll come up, 00:03:57.480 --> 00:03:59.880 and you could almost walk into the mist. 00:03:59.880 --> 00:04:03.120 And of course, the ice is the ice skating rink. 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:05.440 The genesis started with water. 00:04:05.440 --> 00:04:09.560 Grand Rapids actually took the  rapids out of the river there 00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:11.400 for flooding reasons. 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:13.120 And I started to play with the idea 00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:14.762 of bringing it back a little bit. 00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:19.240 The starting of the rings, the terraced rings, 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:22.240 started as, if you took a drop of water 00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:25.080 in the center of the pool, and let them come out, 00:04:25.080 --> 00:04:28.120 and then it spun into an idea 00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:32.040 of as much about astronomy and about the stars, 00:04:32.040 --> 00:04:36.220 so it's almost like pulling  the stars into a pool of water. 00:04:36.220 --> 00:04:40.000 It's sort of a reflection of  the night sky in the pool. 00:04:46.294 --> 00:04:47.400 (group chuckling and chattering) 00:04:47.400 --> 00:04:50.705 <v ->All right, this is it.  Now close your eyes. 00:04:52.190 --> 00:04:56.377 <v ->Wow. This is not bad.</v> 00:04:56.377 --> 00:05:00.256 (chattering) Just be careful, Sarah. 00:05:03.325 --> 00:05:08.463 Wow. (gentle music) 00:05:08.463 --> 00:05:15.400 It's a piece that marks a very set point in time 00:05:15.400 --> 00:05:20.364 and connects it back to a  set occurrence in nature. 00:05:29.640 --> 00:05:31.866 (ice skater yells) 00:05:34.320 --> 00:05:35.280 It's up and running. 00:05:35.280 --> 00:05:38.000 The skating rink's actually up first, 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:42.614 and I'll go back in to fine-tune  the landscaping, the trees. 00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:50.960 My sculptures deal with  naturally occurring phenomena, 00:05:50.960 --> 00:05:54.720 and they are embedded and very closely aligned 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:59.640 with geology and landscape  and natural earth formations. 00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:22.480 It's all about a play back and forth 00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:28.080 between inside works and outside works, 00:06:28.080 --> 00:06:34.540 all trying to capture the landscape. 00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:51.520 This is a group of atlases. 00:06:51.520 --> 00:06:53.960 I bought about ten old atlases. 00:06:53.960 --> 00:07:00.000 And I started making these  landscapes, craters, in them. 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:02.800 So this one sort of has a double crater. 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:05.506 So you go past through the first crater, 00:07:07.320 --> 00:07:10.600 and there's a little island,  and you open it to the island, 00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:14.880 and I'll make it more complex  island geography here, 00:07:14.880 --> 00:07:16.337 which is what's going on. 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:20.800 So much of my artwork is very  large-scale outdoor works 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:24.240 that I like to retreat into the studio 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:27.240 and make a lot of the work myself. 00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:29.520 And the trouble is the outdoor works 00:07:30.080 --> 00:07:32.400 and the architecture tends to take up all my time, 00:07:32.400 --> 00:07:36.200 so I find it very hard, as a struggle, 00:07:36.200 --> 00:07:38.320 to be able to come back here and do this. 00:07:38.320 --> 00:07:41.360 This is like the first work  I've done in a little while. 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:42.897 It's terrible. 00:07:42.897 --> 00:07:43.397 (cat meows) 00:07:53.049 --> 00:07:57.480 We have gone through a period  in art and architecture, 00:07:57.480 --> 00:08:00.440 I think, modernity, industrialization, 00:08:00.440 --> 00:08:02.392 which allowed for specialization. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:07.920 There are very few architects  who are also solidly, 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:09.280 have a gallery. 00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:11.320 Part of me is an artist. 00:08:11.320 --> 00:08:13.419 The other part of me builds architecture. 00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:25.040 I'm not at all wanting to have a large practice. 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:26.920 I don't want to practice architecture. 00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:29.240 I love building a few buildings. 00:08:29.240 --> 00:08:32.000 So I have to be very careful what I take on. 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.637 I've done some works that are extremely public 00:08:35.400 --> 00:08:37.080 and extremely well-known, 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:39.600 and I think had I not done the Vietnam Memorial 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:44.120 and come out with the body of  work that since has come out, 00:08:44.120 --> 00:08:46.080 I would have been able to be called an artist 00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:47.800 about five years sooner. 00:08:47.800 --> 00:08:50.600 But because I had done the Vietnam Memorial, 00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:53.120 it was like, "Oh, you make monuments," 00:08:53.120 --> 00:08:55.243 whatever that means. 00:08:56.480 --> 00:08:59.440 I mean, look at that one, the biggest one. 00:09:00.285 --> 00:09:02.079 Dee-dee-dee-dee. 00:09:02.945 --> 00:09:03.975 Dee-dee-dee. 00:09:06.800 --> 00:09:09.200 I don't think I woke up one day and said, 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:14.280 "Oh, I'm going to be an artist  on some days and an arch..." 00:09:14.280 --> 00:09:16.720 It was more I couldn't choose between the two, 00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:18.880 nor did I choose to blend them. 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:21.447 You might be able to do this better than me. 00:09:24.560 --> 00:09:30.370 It's taken me a body of work  to see how I am developing. 00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:47.940 <v Acquaintance>I don't think so.</v> 00:09:47.940 --> 00:09:51.080 <v ->No, it's solid, it's totally solid.</v> 00:09:51.377 --> 00:09:53.057 It's been on for an hour now. 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:55.240 It's kind of surreal. 00:09:55.240 --> 00:09:57.154 I really want to make this piece. 00:09:58.680 --> 00:10:02.219 I'm actually playing with  the idea of taking this idea 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:08.080 and creating a work out of recycled rubber, 00:10:08.080 --> 00:10:09.920 calling it "Playground." 00:10:09.920 --> 00:10:12.560 It will be twice as big 00:10:12.560 --> 00:10:15.400 as the untitled topographic landscape, 00:10:15.400 --> 00:10:17.034 and kids can play on it.