With a record number of votes submitted on-line and at the Bend downtown library, Art in Public Places is pleased to announce that High Desert Spiral by artist John Fleming has been selected as the next piece of public art to be purchased and installed at the Simpson Ave and Mt. Washington Drive roundabout. Art in Public Places president, Sue Hollern, stated, “We continue to receive wonderful entries. Public input is enormously helpful to us in making our final decision.”
High Desert Spiral will be fabricated over the next several months by Fleming in Seattle and installed next spring. The roundabout is currently under construction and will be completed by October 2012.
Fleming who makes his home in Portland has spent 30 years developing a broad portfolio of art, architecture, and conceptual / environmental projects. He says much of his work blurs the boundaries between all three. He started in ceramics with a brief career as a studio artist, ski instructor and rock climber in Taos, New Mexico. Studying architecture with Anant Raje at the University of New Mexico lead him to India to teach design and ceramics at the School of Architecture in Ahmedabad. India, New Mexico.
Many of the ballots submitted for this project included comments about the art. One anonymous participant stated about High Desert Spiral, “Love the idea of spirals in motion in the wind.” Fleming’s inspiration for the sculpture was driven by the native environment and elements of the high desert region in Central Oregon.
Fleming explained, “In the high desert landscape we find geological examples of how the lava cooled into spirals. In Bend, the traffic from bikes, cars and runners circles around the many spiraling roundabouts.”
The sculpture will be donated by Art in Public Places and will be included in the public art collection for the City of Bend.
Funding for the public art is coming from Art in Public Places, a non-profit organization that provides art to various locations throughout the city of Bend. The Bend Foundation, a non-profit founded and funded by Brooks Scanlon, Brooks Resources Corporation and its shareholders, awarded a $500,000 matching grant to Art In Public Places in 2006 for the purchase and installation of public art in the Bend city limits by the end of December, 2013. Generous donations from the public over the last six years has raised over $500,000, resulting in the matching grant which will provide over $1 million for public art by the end of 2013.
For more information on Art in Public Places, please visit www.artinpublicplaces.org or like us on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/artinpublicplacesbend.
