Prairie Roots is a project in Marshall, Minnesota. It’s rural, out on the prairie, in a small town.  It’s an outdoor space in front of a convention center/hockey arena–mostly it’s a hockey arena.  They’re really into hockey out there.  So the inspiration came from prairie grass.  And also the hockey sticks.  There seemed to be some kind of similarity. 

Basically it’s a field, it’s an area of these abstracted prairie grasses.  So they’re just square steel tubes at different heights that stick up.  They are painted–each square 2 inch by 2 inch tube is painted four colors.  So each face has got an individual color, inspired by colors from the prairie.  It was a little bit seasonal–there’s a green, there’s a yellow, there’s a red, and there’s an orange. 

And then there’s actual prairie grasses planted between these things.  I think there are between 200 and 300 of these poles.  And on top of each pole there’s what almost looks like a finial or a flag, but it’s just a slat of polished stainless steel that’s bolted onto the top.  It’s at an angle, it sticks out, so it looks kind of like a hockey stick, abstract, or some kind of blade of grass.  But it also reflects light.  The piece is illuminated with lights from below, and that also reflects the light in weird directions too, at night.  

And then there’s a seating area in between, and then there’s a stainless steel piece that is cast into the concrete that’s the shape of the Redwood River that flows through town.  Marshall is situated on the Redwood River, so this is the section of the river.  And you can sit in this kind of semicircular space and be kind of semi-enclosed by these grasses.  That’s pretty much the idea.

Marshall, prairie roots, public art