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Sigamé/Follow Me
2001, Oakland, CA twice life-size

This female figure  honors women from Oakland’s earliest history to women living today. The pose is a combination of walking and gesturing to “follow me.” The sculpture is a composite of 20 different women who have made pioneering contributions from  Oakland’s earliest history to the present. Some of these women are still living in the Bay Area. All their names are cast in bronze and inset into the base of the figure,  with the inscription, “Sigamé/Follow Me, From Oakland they Came,  their Gifts Many.” The sculpture does not meld these women together with a seamless surface, but rather recognizes  individual women each unto herself, yet creating a greater whole that has become the fabric of Oakland's culture. Some of the women honored are: Ina Coolbrith, California’s first poet laureate in 1915, and first director of Oakland Public  Library. Julia Morgan, architect and designer of Hearst Castle. Isadora Duncan, choreographer and pioneer of modern dance. Dominga “Domingita” Velasco, pioneer in the Mexican-American movement in Oakland. Ruth Beckford, choreographer of modern and African-Haitian Dance. March Fong Eu, the first woman to be elected California Secretary of State. Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club and other novels.

It was funded by a Federal Transportation Grant and commissioned by the City of Oakland Public Works Agency.

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Homage to Huntington Beach
2000, Huntington Beach CA 7' x 6' x 2.5'

Artists competed for this busy corner location with a landscape design idea and artwork to fit. I chose to make a courtyard out of this corner by designing an art wall. This carved wall is low enough to look over, but when seated inside the courtyard it is high enough to feel protected. By having my 50% larger than life size figures facing away from traffic, the artwork says in affect, “Stop your car and visit this place!” The developer liked this idea, and the city appreciated the historically accurate subject matter that depicts life in Huntington Beach in four different periods of time.

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Evergreen Evolution
1999, San Jose CA 30” x 20” x 8”
For a new memorial garden I designed and fabricated four relief panels and a central plaque all mounted on stone columns. The sculpted hands in each panel are in the scale and position which mimics the viewers hands, thus giving the feeling that it could have been you here 500 years ago. The low-relief mountains  in each piece echo the landscape viewed from the site. Photos and an oral history of events in Evergreen informed each relief.



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Arch of Ely
1999, Palo Alto, CA 28’ x 12.5’ x 22”
The owner of this property, Leonard Ely, is well known in Palo Alto for his car dealerships. The entrance to this office building   was built over the site of Mr. Ely’s first car lot. I conceived, designed and fabricated this artwork to celebrate the history of this location and playfully engage pedestrians in downtown Palo Alto. From afar, the sculpture appears as building ornamentation in a classic European mode. Moving closer, the auto forms and an historical progression becomes apparent. While observing the arch, the viewer can identify particular cars, compare decades of change, and contemplate evolution in general.

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Hand Up
1998, Denver, CO 2x life-size
“Hand Up” is a response to our difficult situation: we are a people from many cultures and races trying to coexist harmoniously on the same planet. Each figure is made up of parts and is a composite of many people from various cultures, races and times. This collision  of parts is an accurate realism for life in our cities. That these parts are unified around a coherent anatomic core is also accurate to our human nature: we share a genetic similarity to all other humans past and present. The part to part connections encourage walking around the sculpture, and reading about the parts which are described on small bronze plaques attached to each part. The figures are twice life-size for the world average height for male and female. This scale is large enough to be seen from a distance but small enough to allow for viewer empathy with the poses. Because our differences are primarily in gender, I have represented two figures, male and female. The positioning of the figure is a reflection of our evolving predicament. In the past, other than disease, we have been our own worst enemies. However, a number of things in recent human development have shown that we will all benefit if we give each other a “Hand Up”.
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Headwaters
1997, Palo Alto, CA 111” x 80” x 18”

The challenge of this Public Art Competition was to create an ADA (American Disabilities Act) compliant drinking fountain and niche on the side of a new bank in downtown Palo Alto. Integrating my designs with the existing building design and providing a narrative about water were the concepts that made this proposal successful. The following are excerpts from my winning proposal:

What Will Be Experienced This niche will compel pedestrians to touch it, and beckon them to have a drink. The womb-like shape will draw people in, but at the same time, from a distance, this niche integrates well into the rest of the building, relating to it in style and scale. The color also follows the logic of the rest of the building. The pattern, narrative and smaller scale of detail are appropriate to this intimate space because this is the part of the building you are expected to touch. At night a low voltage light tucked into the waterfall will illuminate the water pattern and drinking fountain, making this area appealing and also discouraging unwanted bodily functions. Description of Project This cast sculpture niche, as depicted in the enclosed drawing and as seen in the clay maquette, will fit into a pre-existing niche at 400 Emerson Street. The niche will consist of four castings:

1.The top part depicts a waterfall surrounded by architectural forms. The water will be cast of bronze powder in Forton-modified gypsum. The color will be a green patina with raised areas polished to a dull bronze color. The architectural form will have a stone look, dull terra-cotta color and be cast in glass-reinforced calcium aluminate concrete. On top of this part will be ceramic trees glazed to an appropriate realistic color. Mounted inside of this part will be a low voltage light fixture. The outside edges will have a stucco flange.

2.The central area at the back of the niche depicts the surface of water. At the top it is lake-like, then as it flows down and around the drinking fountain it becomes more river-like. Boats are floating in the rivers. The lake and river area will be cast of bronze powder in Forton-modified gypsum and fiberglass. The color will be a green patina with raised areas polished to a dull bronze color. The boats will be of the same material with the exception of steel powder instead of bronze.

3. & 4. These cast side walls to the niche will have a tree relief pattern in the circular top sections and change to a city, building relief pattern in the lower vertical sections. The material will be pigmented, cast calcium aluminate concrete and fiberglass, and have a dull terra-cotta color similar to the tile work on the second floor of this building. The drinking fountain itself will be of commercial quality meeting all of the code requirements.

Kate, Allan, Javier, Ting Ting, Sloanie
 1996, San Francisco, CA 33" x 75" x 23"

Both the niche and figures I designed and fabricated to match the color and texture of this historic police station. I established the meaning of the community room by depicting children at play which contrasts with the pre-existing, formal, lex-ordo (law and order) of the low-relief figuration over the main entrance to the station.

The following is from my written proposal for the commission competition. What has been built differs from the proposal only in that the size of the figures was increased to 20% larger than  lifesize.

Original Proposal Children, ranging in age from 2-8, representative of S.F’s ethnic and racial diversity will be playing in a transom niche above the main doors. To them it is like a treefort or play structure. Interest will be drawn into the niche by the figures’ body positions and gestures. Hands and heads extending beyond the plane of the wall will beckon us to enter the community center. Inside the community center the viewer will see the figures through the window. One child will appear to be pressing her face up against the glass in a playful way, compositionally connecting the sculpture from the inside to the outside. These male and female figures will be realistically portrayed with their clothing being less important than gesture and expression. The ethnic and racial characteristic will include Latin American, African American, Northern and Southern Asian American and Caucasian American. The proportions of the figures will be true to their ages. This scale will give the niche a feeling of being its own world — a little different than ours — and is in keeping with the scale of the relief over the main door. The vitality and playfulness to these children will contrast with the static formal quality of the larger original relief over the main door. The lighter narrative of the children playing over the community center door versus “Law and Order” inscribed in the relief over the main door is appropriate to its use (and will emphasize this) as a room for the people of this primarily residential community. The archway above the door which the children are on is like a bridge, and metamorphically these figures are a bridge to our police—differing from the main building’s meaning of the police-behind-the-bullet-proof-glass. The transom niche is formed within the designed wall dimension of the proposed community center. By including it, the thick-walled entrance portals of the existing building are echoed. However, the children climbing in this niche will make more accessible the otherwise imposing, thick-walled, fortress-like feeling of the police station. The children’s’ park directly across the street relates naturally to this frieze which will invite parents to take their children up the steps to see it, and visit the rest of the station. The very high relief and spatial play between my frieze figures will contrast to the low relief figures over the main door, but remember that the natural light on these proposed figures is very soft north light, requiring larger variation in modeling to be seen. This proposed, relatively high relief is in character with other high relief architectural features of the upper corners of the main structure. Another integrating connection is that my artwork will match the existing stonework in color and texture. At night my design allows for an exciting visual opportunity. By placing low voltage lighting to the side walls of the transom niche, the figures can come to life as seen from 24th Ave. heading south. These lights will balance the community centers entry in relation to the two distinctive wrought iron fixtures at the main door. In conclusion, this proposal uses figures in a contemporary way which will distinguish the community center as its own place made at a different time than the original structure, but is in character with the entire remodel’s homage to the original building.