Gazette.net
by Kate Carroll | Staff Writer
Think of it as art with a sense of place. Installed art can take many forms, and wear many faces. It could be a three-dimensional sculpture created to fit a specific site or space, incorporating the unique characteristics of that place into its design.
Or it might be a two-dimensional affair, a mural adorning the side of a building. It could even be an assemblage of found objects, modified and arranged to communicate an important message to the viewer.
It can be those things, and more. And apart from the limitations of the site itself — and perhaps the cost of materials — the possibilities are infinite.
Area artists have explored these possibilities for some time now and the evidence of their talent and hard work is all over Prince George's County. Take, for instance, the work of mosaic muralist Cheryl Foster. The Temple Hills resident got her start in her preferred medium after a happenstance meeting with Philadelphia artist Isaiah Zagar.
"He and his wife took me in and I learned the art of mosaic," she said. "Those days spent in their mosaic-encrusted home changed my life [and] art forever."
Years later, Foster applied her training and experience to a large-scale project at the National Harbor, titled "Maryland's Bounty." It's a stained glass mural featuring iconic images of waterfront life in the state, including blue crabs and clam shells, as well as images of Admiral Earl White and boatwright Mike Vlahowic. The background is a riot of blue and green, with iridescent glass to evoke the reflections of sunlight on the water's surface.
One of Foster's newer projects is a mosaic for the new Northview Fire/EMS station, as part of the Prince George's County Art in Public Places program. The program, according to its executive director Lauren Dugas Glover, was created to "visually enhance and enrich the county's built environment through the integration of public art." Glover said she hopes the program, and this project in particular, contributes to pride in the community.
"This project makes a statement about Bowie — its hometown feeling of pride and joy as well as represents its diversity," Glover said. "This project also takes the unique step of involving the community in its fabrication with the workshop at the Bowie Senior Center." Glover says the program challenges artists to respond innovatively to the county's cultural diversity, and that the integrated artwork adds local character to the buildings.
"Public art also provides a sense of place to civic spaces," she said.
Foster appreciates the impact of the enormous scale of her creations for public space.
"It has always been natural for me to create in a larger-than-life format," Foster said, adding that the "malady" of working in large-scale began with painted wall murals. "Working on a small scale is much more difficult for me and feels like I'm holding my breath."
Foster considers herself a "public artist," or an artist who specializes in creating works specifically for display in public places. Knowing the permanent nature of her final products ensures that Foster is extra-meticulous in the execution of her plans.
"I think muralists have to be a little bit more fearless and take more chances than studio artists," she said. "Miscalculations are much more obvious when they are 10 feet wide and exposed to the public 24 hours a day."
While much publicly-displayed artwork is of a permanent nature, there are times when a sculpture is installed for a short time, whether it is in a gallery or a public venue. This genre fits the work of Jessica Braiterman, a resident artist at Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel.
Braiterman has an "ongoing fascination with line in space," and uses materials like tire fragments, wire, buttons and shattered glass in the forms she creates. Whereas Foster's and Weitzman's work is designed for a specific, permanent location, Braiterman's sculptures begin with an idea, and she must coordinate the artwork and the environment together to properly convey her idea.
"I had this idea in my studio and I wasn't sure how it would work," Braiterman said. "John Yeh at Montpelier helped me hang this piece in this way. I mapped out with tape on the floor where the parts would go and we began to hang."
The piece Braiterman is referring to is one of her installations at Montpelier: a sculpture of faux-gold-leafed tire fragments hung on wire. The artist took her sketches and inspiration, applied them to the materials and space, and "Veneer" was born.
"I had an idea for a great swelling of this golden flotsam of tire parts that would trickle out at the edges," Braiterman said. "If the viewer walked around to the back of the piece, there would be this great hollowness that stood in strong contrast to the swelling." According to the artist, the coordination with gallery staff contributed to the final arrangement, and improved the impression it would make on viewers as they explored the space.
"I think about the interaction with natural light, if any, and the movement of visitors in the space and through or around the work … By the end, when [Yeh] finished with the lights, I was thrilled," Braiterman said. "His lighting design is both dramatic and sensitive." One hallmark of this large-scale creative process is the hard work involved in getting to the finished product.
"Most of the work I do is very labor intensive and I start to develop a real love of the materials and the objects," Braiterman said. "When I get to install them, it's quite exciting for me." Like Braiterman, Foster also mentioned the physically taxing nature of working big, but that her passion for it keeps her going.
"You have to stay on your toes, constantly reinvent yourself, make a plan and stick to [it], while at the same time be flexible enough to jump ship if your plan isn't working," Foster said.
Another artist with work on permanent display at the National Harbor is Steven Weitzman, a Takoma Park resident with strong ties to Prince George's County in terms of works created specifically for several sites here. His National Harbor work is titled "Chesapeake Journey," a 1,618-square-foot mural depicting a map of the mid-Atlantic region. The work is a terrazzo mural, which differs from a mosiac in that rather than an assemblage of tiles creating the image, it's composed of tiny stone and marble chips, set into concrete and ground down to a polished finish. Weitzman says that for public or installed art, the work is created with the site in mind.
"For me, the challenge is to not just arbitrarily insert the artwork into that environment, but instead, I strive to seamlessly integrate the artwork into the specific place," Weitzman said.
When asked if there are any advantages or disadvantages to making art for a public setting, Weitzman offered an answer that falls roughly between the two.
"When you make public art, you have to consider that people with a wide variety of interests and tastes are going to see it and that inherently changes how you look at it," he said.
E-mail Kate Carroll at kacarroll@gazette.net.