Time Piece – El Monte, CA

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Time Piece went up in El Monte, CA last month. It’s at LA Metro’s new terminal in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley, the easternmost terminus of the Metro system. It’s the busiest bus terminal west of Chicago!

The clocks were made for me by The Verdin Co. of Cincinnati, the extraordinary company that I worked with creating The Bells some decades ago. The work was built by JunoWorks of Denver. The computer controlled, two sided, night time glowing clocks will indeed tell the correct time!

rebiLace

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This work recently went up at Atlanta Airport’s new Maynard Jackson International Terminal.
It contains tens of thousands of crystals from around the world: Austria, The Czech Republic, China, Italy. It is made of stainless steel mesh from Carl Stahl in Germany, engineered by David Bradley of Officium in Chicago And KL & A in Denver, lighting design by Steven Hefferan. Once again, beautifully fabricated by JunoWorks of Denver. Thanks to Bill Baron of Igmor Crystals in New York.

These are pictures from the installation.

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St. Paul’s article – click here!

Lipski to create new work at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Boston

St. Paul’s is a house of Prayer for all People.  Carl Jung saw the spiral as the archetypal symbol of cosmic force, focusing both inward and outward.  The spiral occurred to me because it speaks to all people.  We see it in most every culture, from primitive rock carvings to the scroll of the Torah.  It’s a ubiquitous form in nature—from the motion of subatomic particles to the vastness of galaxies.

The church itself gets its Greek proportions from the golden rectangle, which generates the Fibinacci spiral.  This is how the idea first came to me.  I visited the church in November, and in the Commons came upon a woman making a spiral in the leaves, and walking it back and forth like a labyrinth.  This was like a divine sign.

I’ve based it on a slice from the shell of the Chambered Nautilus, one of the Earth’s oldest creatures.  The Nautilus each year outgrows its chamber and builds a new one, which is a beautiful metaphor for spiritual growth.  Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote his great poem, The Chambered Nautilus, reflecting on just this.  He called the nautilus “The Ship of Pearl”, and I have made this the title of the sculpture.  Here is the last stanza:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

I plan to make it look like the stone tracery on Gothic churches.  St. Paul’s was once a prominent building, but as tall office buildings have grown up around it, it has lost its impact.  Folks have felt that it looks like a bank.  I think this will change that.  I expect it will be a new and welcome landmark on Tremont St.

-Donald Lipski

F.I.S.H.

San Antonio voted the Museum Reach addition to The River Walk the “Best of The Decade!”

The Tent

The Tent,  created for the Indy 500 Festival’s 50th Anniversary was chosen by Indianapolis Magazine at best “New Public Art.”.  This video gives a good, if low-res idea of the piece.

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Psyche

There is a new science building at Denver’s Auraria campus, which serves 40,000 students of three universities.  I created a butterfly made from steel and 10,000 resin filled glass test tubes, made for me by the great Denver artist, John McEnroe. Fabrication by JunoWorks, Denver.

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Acorn Steam, Sacramento Airport

Acorn Steam, Lipski’s chandelier in the form of three valley oak trees joined together, graces Sacramento Airport’s new terminal.  Again, Lipski worked with Jonquil LeMaster, the world’s foremost tree fabricator.  She has worked with Lipski on the piece at Grand Central Terminal and several other works.

Reno

Reno RTC Bus Terminal

The piece is up!  It is a 1962 GMC “fishbowl” transit bus; We’ve cut it up and put it back together to taper to the back.  It’s called “Jackson”–one of the names on the front crawl that came with the bus!  The amazing fabrication was done by JunoWorks of Denver, Colorado.

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Project Update

Houston Waterworks

Homeland Security has ruled that the new Houston Waterworks should not b open to the public.  So putting my fountain TUBBS! there would be like the tree falling in the forest.  The Houston Arts Alliance is committed to building the piece, and is actively searching for a new site.  There is much about this that is good news, and I expect to find a great site.