ARCHAEOLOGY MEETS ART

The clients and design team wanted three mosaic pieces, ‘floating’ in the lobby — which meant that unlike the Dallas project, these pieces needed to be two-sided. They had a palette in mind, but hadn’t given much thought to the materials. They mentioned, however, that during the excavation of the site, many artifacts were uncovered and collected, and that opened up all kinds of possibilities.

I met with the archaeologists, learned about the excavation, and looked at the artifacts. There were pieces of broken tableware, pottery, glass, metal objects — all kinds of stuff that I was able to incorporate into the sculptures. So these mosaic sculptures that I created actually incorporate physical remnants that reflect the history of the site. I also received input from the designers and owners that influenced my final design.

The pieces were built in my studio and then moved to the site. That wasn’t an easy task. Each one is about seven feet tall by four feet wide, and each weighs about 800 pounds, before being attached to the steel frames. The steel frames are heavy too. When finished, each piece weighed about a half a ton.