Natural Language: Spiral Bench - Kelowna, British Columbia
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T0SHEA
N 49° 53.375 W 119° 29.612
11U E 320896 N 5529335
Natural Language: Spiral Bench s placed at the Kelowna’s Main Library Plaza entrance located at 1380 Ellis Street in downtown Kelowna.
Waymark Code: WMGQY2
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 04/02/2013
Views: 4
Natural Language consists of two works: a stainless steel spiral bench showcasing an array of biological diversifications throughout the natural world.
The Mobius is a rotating 12-foot form made of cast stainless steel and features letters and symbols derived from the World’s alphabets completing the ensemble.
Both works were artistically accomplished by sculptors: Jennifer Macklem and Kip Jones in 1999.
The spiral bench seems to emerge from the ground. The spiral incorporates cut outs, engraved and three-dimensional representations of plants, fossils, insects and animal life.
The entire piece is made of stainless steel and shows very detailed workmanship. The birds, fish, frogs and turtles, insects are sculptured with attention to the smallest detail. There is a bird nest hidden within the bench.
This is truly a masterpiece.
“Our public art proposal for the Kelowna Library was inspired from ideas concerning language and the connections between nature and culture that one discovers with a library.”
The diversity of the letters and symbols used in the rotating Mobius form evokes consideration of and respect for different cultures. The inner and outer sides of the upright form “related to the internal/external nature of language – through language and text our internal thoughts, stories or ideas become part of the broader world, and they loop again back into someone’s subjective reading.”
Quotes are credited to Sculptors: Macklem and Jones.
Construction of these two sculptures required almost a year of artistic effort utilizing the “lost wax” method. The process consists of moulding wax into a desired shape, casting and firing it in ceramic whereby the wax is “lost”, then pouring molten stainless steel into the ceramic mould to complete the initial fabrication.
This initial casting phase is followed by laborious grinding, detailing and polishing to create the highly reflective, smooth surface.
The $35,000 commission was completed and installed in the spring of 2000 at the Library Plaza.
