In the current TV series Marco Polo, Kublai Khan lavishes his respect upon his trained peregrine falcon, which the 13th-century Mongol emperor refers to as “the king of the hunters.” Our human fascination with falcons goes back much further, perhaps even to 2000 B.C. Today the peregrine has learned to live among us, in our cities, which inspired Christopher Griffin’s newest public art project in Ottawa.
Earlier in 2014 Griffin won a competition to install a public art project beneath the Bronson Avenue overpass at Riverside Drive, and he immediately knew that this job was, ahem, one for the birds.
”My winning proposal involved the Ottawa Falcon Watch, a group of dedicated volunteers who watch the fledgling peregrine falcons from sunup to sundown for five weeks every spring since 2010,” Griffin says. “The peregrines are nesting on the adjacent RA building. Who knew? I didn’t, and thought this would be the perfect subject matter.”
His installation would spread like a pair of wings. The City of Ottawa budget for the project was $20,000, which was to cover all costs for materials, fabrication and installation, leaving whatever was left over as income for the artist. (If you’re one of those people who persist in the misbelief that artists get rich from public-arts grants you should stop reading now, as your delusion will be shattered.)
The terms of the project called for two murals to be installed beneath the bridge, where they would be seen by people passing on Riverside. Griffin designed two horizontal, concrete panels, each eight feet high and 24 feet wide. He etched images of falcons in flight into each panel while the surface was wet, and created a three-dimensional effect that gives life and power to the grand raptors.
Then Griffin realized the project needed more, yet the city’s $20,000 budget was set. Griffin wanted to add vertical panels to two large concrete “wings” that sit beside the overpass and reach from the ground to the top, level with Bronson Avenue. “I asked (city officials) if they had more money to include a mural on these much more visible wings,” he says. “The answer was no.”
Griffin “realized that the underpass itself would be underwhelming,” so he asked if he could add the vertical wings so long the city’s costs did not increase. The city said yes, “so I paid $18, 600 in materials and labour to do both the underpass and the wings.” Two more concrete murals went up on the wings, with each 18-foot-tall vertical panel etched with a peregrine falcon perched on a block.
The vertical panels greatly enhance the overall impact of the installation. Their shape contrasts pleasingly with the horizontal panels beneath the bridge, while the resting falcons add a complementary perspective to the birds in flight.
Then Griffin looked up even further, to the top of the overpass, and he decided the job still wasn’t finished.
“I realized that a few strategically placed concrete sculptures would not only bring more attention to the subtle murals below, but would be visible to traffic flowing on Bronson Avenue,” where motorists would otherwise be “ignorant to the fact that (murals were) installed beneath them.”
He spent the remaining $1,400 in the city budget, and some money out of his own pocket, to make several sculptures of falcons that now sit on top of the overpass. Each bird is 36 inches tall, and in a perched position as if scanning the skies for prey. They are indeed regal.
“The sculptures are getting far more attention than the murals,” Griffin says. “I am realizing that 3D sculptures in conjunction with concrete murals have an enhancing effect on each other.”
The sculptures are highly visible to the tens of thousands of people who pass daily on Bronson, and they’ve been noticed since the project was installed in late October. There’s even a short subreddit on reddit.com where people have enquired about the “bird statues on Bronson bridge.” (One person suggested, “They are likely there to keep gulls and pigeons away from the bridge.”)
One pair of horizontal panels on Riverside grew into a three-part installation that can also be seen from Bronson, and fittingly pays homage to the falcons that live only a few wingbeats away. Griffin made no money on the project — indeed, he had to dip into his own savings to make it all happen — but he has no regrets.
“I am not complaining. I approached the city with the sculpture idea, knowing full well that it was outside the mandate of the mural,” he says. “The important thing is that it got installed and kudos to the city for allowing me to provide work outside the mandate of the competition. . . To me it’s worth it. To have permission to put something on there is more valuable to me than the money.”
Amen to that. Artistic inspiration, like a peregrine, should be allowed to take flight.
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