Canopy - Progress on the Anchorage Airport Mosaics

I've just returned from Munich, Germany, where I spent a week working with the firm that is fabricating the very large mosaics that Anchorage sculptor Sheila Wyne and I are doing for the Anchorage International Airport. (If you missed my introduction to this project, scroll down to the June 27, 2008 posting which describes the commission and includes information on the firm--Franz Mayer of Munich--and images of the proposal.) It was exciting to see the work well underway, with a sizable section of the ceiling image completed, and to talk with the craftsmen there about the ongoing translation from painting to mosaic and a host of technical issues.

Much of my week was spent with Herbert Hahn, one of the two master mosaic craftsmen who worked with us on a sample section when Sheila, Missy, and I went over last spring.  Herbert, on the left in the image above, has created mosaics for the 150 year-old firm for almost 35 years, since 1975.  He has done most of the work on the portion of our mosaic that is currently complete, but will soon be joined full time on the project, he told me, by at least two other craftspersons, and three of them will spend several more months on it before it is complete.  

Herbert is an inspiration to watch at work. He makes it look easy--moving without haste, but steadily and swiftly bringing the image to life. A printed, gridded image of the painting hangs on the wall nearby. A stack of prints of various details is on the table, and a full-scale enlargement of the painting underlies the mesh onto which he sets and glues what will eventually be more more than a million tiny glass tesserae and small, irregular pieces of all kinds of marble. 

Herbert encouraged both Sheila and me to try our hands at working on the mosaic itself, and we each spent about a day and a half completing very small sections.  Sheila has done mosaics before, though none of this sort, and she was slightly more comfortable and a bit faster at it than I, but we both found it much slower and more challenging than Herbert made it look.

It was a good thing for me to experience, as it not only gave me an even better sense of the skill and craftsmanship of those at Mayer of Munich, but helped me realize some ways that the next time I do a painting for translation into this medium, I can make it easier for them.  Over and over, as I selected tesserae by color, shape, and size, splitting or trimming them as necessary, spread small sections of cement on the mesh, and tried to set them cleanly and crisply in place, I thought about how easy it is for me to create a complex shape in paint with the flick of the wrist, and how much more labor intensive it is to translate that shape into bits of glass.

The mosaic itself is astonishingly rich--even more varied in texture, color, and surface than I had expected, while remarkably faithful in overall image to its painted model.  The section they had completed when I arrived, about 6' x 10', was impressive in its scale, and I had to keep reminding myself that this was only a bit more than 1/10 of what will be the completed mosaic. Despite having us there as distractions all week long, Herbert completed another substantial square footage, including the first large areas depicting one of the enormous birch trunks.  The trunks are being done largely in marble--travertine, greenish onyx from Iran, cut and polished pinkish slabs from a Tunisian quarry that supplied material to the Romans, and many more varieties--to contrast with the branches, foliage, and sky.

As I mentioned in my first post about this project, collaboration on works of art with so many people is a new and different experience for me. I am accustomed to toiling alone, in the privacy of my studio. I have completed large public commissions before--one of them, a federal commission for the Pacific Rim Hospital at Elmendorf Air Force Base, involving 4 paintings, each almost 15 feet wide, in two main ground floor lobbies.  It was more than a year of work, but with the exception of some considerable help from my son Eli, the work was done entirely alone. This project seems to me more like a theatrical production--a collaboration of a great many people, in order to bring it to life. I am grateful to be working with Sheila, who has a wealth of experience with these kinds of projects, and who has taken the lead in coordinating the myriad engineering details among us, the studio in Munich, and the Anchorage Airport project managers, architects, and engineers. I'm grateful, as always, to my wife Missy, who helps me keep the ongoing challenges in perspective, and to Sheila's partner Bruce Farnsworth, who continues to provide logistical coordination for our efforts, most recently getting us great flight reservations and tickets to Munich.  And I feel deeply privileged to get to work with the entire staff of Franz Mayer of Munich, who are simply the best in the world at what they do.

And so it grows...piece by tiny piece, day by day and week by week, over months. Late this summer, it will all be shipped to Anchorage in small, irregular-edged sections, and we will get to watch and help Herbert and his colleagues apply some of them to a 9 1/2' tall column, creating an abstracted "birch trunk," and the rest to a 16' by 36' ceiling, creating a Canopy of magical, boreal forest reaching to the sky.

Comments

[Kurt Jacobson]

Kes,

Wow what a fun trip that must have been. The mosaic is looking good. Can you say where it will be in the Airport?

[Kesler Woodward]

Thanks so much, Kurt, for your nice comment. The mosaic ceiling and column will be in a 2-story, clerestory space that's currently under construction, where the two main concourses (B & C) of the airport intersect. It's a great spot, and a beautiful space, so I'm excited.

[Gail Niebrugge]

Kes,

This is amazing and will certainly be the crowning glory at the airport. You have absolutely created a masterpiece. Kudos! Keep up the fine work. It reminds me of pointillism.

Gail Niebrugge, http://www.niebruggestudio.com