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Description:
The Creative Edge
infuses public art into the western segment of the Rio Salado South
Bank Path. The design team integrated sculptures and architectural
structures with the landscape design along the path and at its
nodes. Project elements include an entrance landmark (composed of
art panels made from recycled street signs), four view-window
sculptures, an allee of sky windows, four architectural shade
structures, four sculptural cast-concrete seats and landscape design
features. The sculptural windows focus on views of mountain parks
and buttes. At the central node, a large window sculpture represents
the synthesis of the organic and the structured. The node is framed
by an allee of sky windows mounted on old street signal mast arms.
The shade structures at two of the nodes, created from translucent
fiberglass and steel, were inspired by the curved roof of the former
Tempe Art Center, a past feature of Tempe Beach Park. The sculptural
seats reference rock outcroppings in the riverbed and include river
rock medallions, while the flowing shape of the path was inspired by
Hohokam water patterns.
Funding:
The project was funded through city of Tempe Capital Improvement
Project Percent for Art funds.
Artist biography:
Thomas Strich
was born and raised in California. He received a double B.A. degree
in Studio Art and Art Theory from the University of California,
Santa Cruz, and received an M.F.A. degree in sculpture from Arizona
State University. Strich has been an Arizona-based artist since
1990. Since 1995 he has been applying his skills as a mixed media
artist and photographer toward urban planning processes and public
art projects. In his studio work, Strich has explored the mentality
and perception that underscores the relationships humans develop
with their natural environment. He has completed public art and
private development projects for Tempe, Phoenix and Queen Creek.
Artist statement:
The South Bank Path marks the boundary between the city of Tempe and
the Salt River. The Creative Edge distinguishes the river
side with organic patterns of nature; the urban side is defined by
the grid patterns of the city. This project celebrates the
creative diversity that abounds at “the edge” which is the frontier,
the limit, of conventional knowledge and the realm of discovery.
The Creative Edge focuses on viewing, surveying and reassessing
vistas in order to see new possibilities. This focus is embodied by
sculptural windows that symbolize the achievements of artists and
thinkers whose discoveries opened up new ways of seeing and
understanding the world. Other elements of the project use pieces of
the city’s past infrastructure, which is reconfigured and
reinterpreted in unorthodox ways. The Creative Edge points
the way toward an environmentally-based culture where solutions to
issues are generated by new perspectives and creative problem
solving.
The Tempe public art program is managed by City
of Tempe Cultural Services staff
with input from the Tempe Municipal Arts Commission, a 15-member,
mayor-appointed advisory board.
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