Critter Art at Public Works, Asking the Legislature to Fund the Acid Ball Eco Earth

Though with the budget crisis and debate on the payroll tax the optics are terrible at this moment, the new Public Works building looks pretty neat!

Drawings from a year ago

The paper published yesterday a suite of photos from the private, soft opening, and here are some comments.

The interior light looks pretty great, especially on dreary winter days. Hopefully that's a representative image, not something juiced for promos.

The light looks pretty nice!

Half of the art seemed visible. I could not discern anything for the interior by Claire Burbridge. Maybe it hasn't been installed. (See update below!)

The outer sculpture by Brad Rude was visible though. For water and sewer, and our location in Oregon, the beaver seemed properly iconic! Did they put the beaver in a stormwater swale, even? My first impression is that the beaver should have been the dominant figure, though.

A beaver is a natural engineer of water

The ram may be too much of a nod to a truck brand, and if we are meant to see the beaver as a symbol of water management, I am not sure how to get to transportation from the ram, other than by the big truck brand.

Still, even without any symbolic interpretation, the critter art looks like something that will be enjoyed broadly in ways that the Eye of Salem Sauron at the Police Station never will be.

Perhaps because the landscaping might not be complete, or because the initial construction was for only half of the envisioned building complex, there were no photos of the whole exterior. Maybe at the public Grand Opening there will be more on the exterior. The gables, windows, and wood are together not frilly and very handsome. It's too bad the building is a little exiled to the industrial hinterlands and not anything knit more tightly into the urban fabric. The art and building will be a drive-to destination mainly rather than something casually encountered on a walk.

The City also wasn't talking much about the architecture firm, Hacker, who also did the library remodel. That omission is a little odd.

See also:

• "Art Commission with news on Art for Public Works Building" (2022)
  
• "City Reveals Concept for New Public Works Complex" (2022)
  
• The City press release for the ribbon cutting
  
• And the project site at Hacker architects

Separately, elsewhere there was an odd note that asserted climate change was to blame for the deterioration of the Acid Ball Eco-Earth.

via FB

The culprit has seemed to be fabrication choices and materials. But this potentially involves blame on one or more people, and by assigning blame to climate change any reasons for the deterioration can be distributed so widely they disperse to nothingness. It looks politically convenient and perhaps emotionally resonant.

Maybe letting the ball deteriorate and grieving the loss of the ball as a symbol of climate change would be a more honest gesture, however. Climate change is about loss, not frantic and expensive efforts to deny loss. (Our efforts should be focused on reducing emissions, anyway.)

More generally we should tolerate transience in a greater proportion of public art and not insist so firmly on permanence. Creativity is not nullified by impermanence.

See:

• "Restoring the Eco-Earth Globe in Salem's Riverfront Park"

Update, October 9th

Burbridge posted to Instagram a few days ago, "fun day installing...at new Salem Public Works building."

Wallpaper at Public Works - via IG

Installing "Unified Realm #2"
Oaks at Bush Park - via IG and here

It will be great to see these in person. Mediated through social media, they are mysterious and biomorphic, suggesting microbial and fungal growth, even with the scale of the trees, and apt for waste water treatment, streams, and urban forestry. Hopefully they are loved by the employees, who will see them daily.