Another project that’s almost complete is in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  It’s an old neighborhood.  It’s called Highland Park Neighborhood, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and it’s a small park, actively used, but it’s missing some kind of interactive art.

In this case, the idea was inspired by a peacock, an itinerant peacock that would show up in the neighborhood.  Nobody knew where it came from. And I went to do some community engagement events, just talk with neighbors and research, and I was kind of asking typical questions about the neighborhood and everything, and somebody mentioned this peacock.  They’ve named him Pete. I just watched how people would interact when they would talk about Pete. And people that didn’t necessarily know each other, but they would all come together–everybody knows Pete. Where is Pete? And somebody would see him, and they would post it on the neighborhood Facebook page.  It was this big thing: where did he go? Where is he from? And it’s kind of an exciting thing…

But it occurred to me… yes, Pete will go, eventually.  He’s not going to be around forever. But what he does is exactly what a piece of public art should do–bring people together, start a conversation, be a topic that’s accessible and safe for everyone to comment on, just be a conversation starter.  So I started looking at peacocks in earnest, their forms, colors, feathers, open and closed, the radial patterns. And it seemed to have a lot to do with the geometry of the park, with the landscape design.

So this inspired–it’s an abstract design that’s based on a peacock.  Feathers being closed and then open, and about moving around it and seeing reflections of yourself.

There’s a mirror–it’s a two-sided convex mirror that can be rotated to reflect the sculpture, like the eye in the peacock feathers.

The bench and the lighting and electrical are being built right now.  The sculpture is being fabricated out of steel in Chattanooga. It should be done soon.  So I’ll have to go down to install that too, very soon.

It is very whimsical.  It was fun to do because it is whimsical. It’s called Regarding Pete, or RE: Pete.

Chattanooga, in progress, public art, RE: Pete