?The plaque reads as follows:
Sculpture by Rachelle Dowdy
Donated to Alaska by
The
Wild
Foundation
8th World Wilderness Congress, 2005
Vance G. Martin
President, The wild Foundation
Mark Begich
Mayor, City of Anchorage
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DOWDY TRANSFORMS KEY BANK PLAZA
Local artist Rachelle Dowdy has been selected to create a permanent piece of public sculpture to be donated to the city of Anchorage in conjunction with the 8th World Wilderness Congress (8thWWC), Sept. 30 – Oct. 6, 2005.
“Rachelle Dowdy’s piece was selected because committee members felt it was both artistically strong and conveyed a message that the 8th WWC was bringing to Alaska – the essential interdependence of human society and wild nature,” said Vance Martin, president of the WILD Foundation and 8th WWC Executive Committee chair.
The sculptures will be located in the open plaza at 601 W. First Ave., in front of the building currently known as the Key Bank Plaza. Dowdy said she envisions the four figures located randomly throughout the plaza to help the viewer actively participate with the individual sculptures.
“It is an honor to be selected to visually represent this 8th WWC,” Dowdy said. Dowdy a 1996 graduate of the University of Alaska Fairbanks with a bachelor’s of fine art in sculpture and painting is also a teacher with the Artist in School Program and has helped youth experiment with art in various schools across Anchorage.
The theme of the 8th WWC, “Wilderness, Wildlands, and People: A Partnership for the Planet,” was the inspiration of this venture for Dowdy. “What partly inspired me to submit this proposal was a recent statistic stated on the radio by a Fish and Game official: ‘75 percent of the Anchorage population loves cohabitating with the local wildlife,’” Dowdy said.
For this project, Dowdy will use the metaphor of transformation with human and animal forms. The animals represented in the sculptures live or migrate through Anchorage.
Dowdy decided for this project, the sculptures should be made of ferro-concrete – a process of layering concrete over a frame, allowing for a hollow, lightweight structure. Dowdy’s experimentations with ferro-concrete culminated this summer with a show at The International Gallery of Art, where the Anchorage Museum of History and Art purchased Hollow Search; Crane Women Hunts with funds made available by the Rasmussen Foundation.