E(art)h Day

Happy Earth Day!

News today that a local sustainability engineering firm, Glumac, is putting up cash and leading a community fundraising effort to establish an annual "Earth Day Art" celebration. Each year, a new piece of public art with links to sustainability will be dedicated in honor of someone who has helped pioneer the sustainability movement in Portland.

The inaugural sculpture in this effort is entitled "Bows to Blows -- Sentinels for Peace and Sustainability," commissioned of Seattle artist Buster Simpson, whose most noteworthy piece of Portland public art is the "Host Analog" outside of the Oregon Convention Center. Buster's new sculpture, to be installed along the South Waterfront Greenway, will feature two salvaged (dare I say "repurposed?") WWII Liberty Ship bow remnants. From the artist's statement:

Sculpturally, these elements represent the transfer and acceptance of gravity and the embrace of mass and suggest shipyard inventory either during their making or their dismantling along the Willamette River. To inspire an ethic of environmental responsibility, a hand operated “stewardship bilge pump” offers reclaimed water to the adjacent river habitat. The pair of bows and the bilge pump stand to remind us of the utility and grace of transforming “swords into plowshares” for the healing of the earth.

Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish will dedicate the artwork and reveal this year's honoree at a public ceremony in SoWa this evening at 5PM. Just take the streetcar to the SW Bond & Lane stop and stroll down the bike path to the river. The piece is still being created but there is an artistic rending of the sculpture at the site.



While you're there, stay for the launch of U of O's South Waterfront artist in residence program, 6 to 8PM at the John Ross Plaza Studio.