Congruence/ Correspondence (Paradigm)
The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
1995
Materials & Dimensions:
Wood, cotton batiste, cast white Portland cement, colored pigment, graphite pencil
Wall Drawings: blue and terra cotta-each 8 feet diameter; pencil-each 8 inches diameter
Central form: 10 feet 5 inches high x 29 feet 11 inches diameter
The site was the cruciform-plan front gallery of the old Contemporary Arts Center. The center of this gallery had a thirty-feet diameter interior ceiling dome with a cupola skylight above.
The ceiling dome interior was repainted for my installation. I fabricated a translucent, ribbed bowl of wood and cotton fabric to fit into the existing sky lit dome and anchored this at its center base to the floor with a white, concave cast concrete circle. The light-filled globe that resulted could be entered, although the two openings were not evident from the gallery entrance. These openings were on axis with the arms of the cruciform plan of the gallery, at each end of which I drew a pigmented triple spiral. One of these was a galactic spiral in ultramarine pigment; he other was a diagram of phylotaxis in terra-cotta pigment. Beyond the bowl, on facing walls, I made two small pencil drawings. They embodied the work-----one being a bowl and the other a dome—but both were actually the same drawing simply reversed. The translucent bowl was not fastened anywhere to the existing architecture. It stood due to a combination keystone/parasol principle. The installation acted as a day finder, the bowl changing color with the changing light of day.