Stone Horse Green is the site of a former livery stable in Middleton WI. Our sculpture includes a light feature using barn lights and a group of “boulders” with cast bronze toy horse heads to help imagine the horses and barn that once occupied this beautiful site. Park design by Saiki Design.

A common theme of fairy tales, folklore and children’s stories is to imagine the goings-on of animals when the humans aren’t looking. The animals are a magic-realism reference to stories such as Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and Winnie the Pooh, as well as the human activities of cultivation and bioengineering. This project can be seen in “Flourish: The Garden at 50” at Chicago Botanic Gardens.

“Sad Yeti”, installed in Law Park, Madison WI for "Winter is Alive 2021”

The Abominable Snowman occupies a place in the public imagination somewhere between folklore and science fiction. Sightings of the Yeti or its footprints have appeared in snowy locations around the world. We chose to portray him as a sad muppet-like figure, searching far off course for the most wintry areas of the globe as they become smaller and harder to find.

Actual Size Artworks with Dean Proctor, 2020 completion

Text from “Remember” by Joy Harjo

Night Photos by Hawk City Productions

This artwork arises from the idea of nature as a source of healing and inspiration. Across time and place, human beings have sought relief and respite in the natural environment and its flora. This “pathway to discovery” through landscape and a vessel encourages us to contemplate the transformation of plants into medicine. The College of Pharmacy, with its emphasis on creating and disseminating knowledge through education and research, encourages a deep consideration of our human condition, with the goal of improving health and well-being. The meeting of plants and science provided our point of departure for this project.

“Turning”, Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center. This sculpture has two inspirations: Frank Lloyd Wright’s circular design for one of Madison’s most beloved public spaces, and Tatlin’s “Monument to the Third International”, a favorite of ours (along with many other artists). This Russian Constructivist work was a proposal for a transparent building that would house public functions, conferences, and information centers, and although it was never built it remains an idealistic, forward-looking visual statement about public space and urban life. It resonates even more right now.

“Glimpse”, Capitol East Parking Garage, Madison WI

Aluminum and lighting

This sculpture turns the face of a parking garage into a fluttering curtain.

This sculpture is based on an upturned  magician’s hat, with the top of a rabbit’s head just visible in the opening. It has a humorous appearance except for the angry expression on the rabbit’s face. The magician’s trick of pulling a rabbit out of a hat requires  distracting the audience in order to produce a surprise. This kind of sleight-of-hand is a good metaphor for the current political dynamic in this country – a suspension of disbelief in which  we seem only too willing to engage.  

 Sculpture Milwaukee 2019 in the Pfister Hotel Plaza, Milwaukee WI

Cedar, steel, foam, paint. 12’ x 8’ x 8’

This sculpture is based on the phrase used in baseball and in everyday language to describe a powerful achievement: in this sculpture the ball has been hit so hard that it joins the solar system.

Wade Stadium, Duluth, Minnesota

Stainless steel, bronze. Two sections 5’h x 15’w x 5’d

These sculptures feature colorful examples of urban wildlife perched on forms resembling tree branches or utility poles, to mark 5 locations on this urban trail.

Jordan Creek Trail, 5 sites, West Des Moines, Iowa

Stainless steel, polychromed cast aluminum. 14 – 17’h

These clusters of winged forms gather around the light fixtures as a metaphor for the role of the library in the community.

Skyline Hills Branch Public Library, San Diego, California

Aluminum, two outdoor and five indoor sculptures. 7’ x 6’

Actual Size with Arnold Martin. Photos by John Durant

The sculpture is visible from the shorelines of the Tenney Park lagoon but not close enough to access, suggesting a way to cross to the other side that is desired but never attained; we all seem stranded on our own shores.

Tenney Park, Makeshift Festival, Madison, Wisconsin

Salvaged lumber. 5’ x 3’ x 16”

This sculpture is based on the old shop-class project known as “Stairway to the Stars”. The small constructions have a silhouette of a crescent moon with stairs along the inner surface.

Appleton, Wisconsin

Stainless steel. 3’ x 5’ x 10’

The sculptures in this group refer to the history and future of Kansas City as a transportation hub, consisting of various forms of transportation blended into one object.

Union Station Streetcar Shelter, Kansas City, Missouri

Cast aluminum and bronze. approx. 48” x 40” x 8”

Actual Size with Arnold Martin

This sculpture for the campus quadrangle is based on images of the prairie and the forest, with oversize cast stone forms set into a circular area lit by waving clusters of acorn lights.

Minnesota State University, Moorhead, Minnesota

Steel, cast stone, lighting, landscaping. 48’ diameter

Actual Size Artworks with Dean Proctor AIA

This sculpture, based on a pedestrian footbridge, appears to be suspended in the canopy of a group of hackberry trees. We had this idea after reading “The Hidden Life of Trees”, by Peter Wohlleben, about the beautiful and invisible systems by which trees communicate with each other.

Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Salvaged lumber. 6’ x 14’ x 3’

A schematic diagram of an acorn creates a series of compartments filled with plant material.

Sharon Lynn Wilson Center for the Arts, Brookfield, Wisconsin

Salvaged lumber and copper, plant material. 6’h x 4’d

Bridges have many associations in the collective imagination – ideas about movement, progress, connection, and the human mark upon the landscape are often attached to bridges. This sculpture is part of the Chicago Tree Project.

Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois

Salvaged lumber. 3’ x 5’ x 16’

Lake Mendota is central to the history and campus life of University of Wisconsin - Madison. This sculpture is based on an 1897 hydrographic map of Lake Mendota produced by the University civil engineering students. LEDs shining into the acrylic from behind cause the sculpture to glow, and it is recessed into the wall .

Dejope Residence Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Acrylic and lighting. 12' x 12' x 18'

This sculpture is in the form of two intertwined, tapering spiral staircases. A winding, indirect path is meant to be a metaphor for the experience of being a student, and the resulting cocoon-shape refers to the supportive environment at this university.

Warch Student Center, Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin

Fabricated aluminum. 30’ long

This sculpture acts as a backdrop for Chicago’s historic open-air market. In different languages drawn from the varied ethnic groups who have been part of Chicago’s “melting pot” tradition, the panels refer to the kind of merchant signs that are characteristic of the market.

Maxwell Street Market, Chicago, Illinois

Fabricated aluminum and sign materials. 70’ long

An ascending ladder form greets visitors to the fire station and expresses the role of fire and emergency workers in the community. A light in the bell housing illuminates the sidewalk at night.

Fire Station #5, Lawrence, Kansas

Stainless steel, concrete, bronze bell, light. 17’ x 10’ x 10’

Front porches are largely gone from contemporary homes; they represent an era of real-world physical communities, before air conditioning, TV and computers led people to relax indoors. This porch is split into two different halves that don’t completely align, because although we may not see eye to eye with everyone we meet, it’s still possible to have civil conversation and learn about different points of view.

New Albany, Indiana. “Today and Tomorrow” series

Salvaged lumber. 12’h x 16’w x 8’d

A contemporary update on a pastoral image, the giant wooden bucket in this sculpture is spilling out a flood of rooftops. Based on the imagery of the childrens’ story “Jack and Jill”, it is a response to the current economic crisis.

Evanston Art Center, Evanston, Illinois

Cedar, steel, mixed media

Volumes is a series of sculptural elements placed in a landscaped berm formed by a rock wall. Wrapping around the rear parking area of the library, the berm is at its highest point at the corner, and tapers at each end. Three and four foot high CorTen steel books are clustered within granite boulders, plants, shrubs and groundcovers. The books bear in relief the titles of popular children's books, as chosen by the children who use the Hedberg Library.

Hedberg Public Library, Janesville, Wisconsin

CorTen books, rock wall, landscape materials. 80 ‘ x 40’ x 20’

These four panels, mounted next to the entrance of a new police station, are based on maps of the neighborhood, with panels of photographic cut-out images from police archives.

Milwaukee 3rd District Police Station, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Stainless Steel. Four panels 9’ x 10’

We replaced glass panes in the elevator shaft with printed glass based on images of student and faculty research in the sciences; an aluminum sculpture based on a matrix hangs in the atrium above.

Upham Hall, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater

Four story atrium-aluminum and art glass

This project is a reference to the preservation of open space as a gift to the community. The red pines were harvested by the Arboretum for the health of other trees.

Morton Arboretum

Red Pine, copper. 8' x 10' x 8'

This sculpture is based on the idea of harvest, local food production, and the idea that the real bounty is the community.

Wormfarm Institute’s “Art D Tour”, Reedsburg, Wisconsin

Salvaged barn boards, steel, solar lighting, seed bag cushions. 16’x8’

This project is a multi-site sculpture that is inspired partially by the type of work done in the Laboratory Sciences Building, and by its specific spatial quality. The sculpture is based on (but does not represent) several natural forms, originating both inside the human body and in the outdoor environment.

Laboratory Science Building, University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, Wisconsin

Steel and glass

This sculpture is based on an upside-down tree. Located in the children's reading area, the "foliage" provides benches and shelves, and small birds and animals are placed under the foliage and in the roots above.

Dwight Foster Public Library, Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin

Painted steel, wood, rubber. 18'h x 12'd

The sculpture is a diagonal stepped form resembling a tapered staircase with a pattern cut into the material that casts a changing shadow silhouette on the front of the building. It is meant to enliven the flat planes and geometry of the building, and to suggest an active movement – like running up and down stairs. The red spheres are meant to resemble the sequence of a bouncing ball, a symbol of play and good spirits.

Northwest Medical Center, Charlotte, North Carolina

Fabricated aluminum. 22’l x 4’w

This project is for the children's' wing of a public library; a giant aluminum book flies open overhead and the pages flutter out, folding to become origami figures that refer to the story of the community, starting out silver and becoming brightly colored as they unfold.

Deer Park Library, Deer Park, Washington

Fabricated aluminum. 30’ x 6’ x 8’

This sculpture takes the form of a destination pole with a spiraling cluster of signs related to this East Side neighborhood's history and personality. The signs were inspired by the visual texture of the older streetscape that is still visible amidst the new, including older signs from businesses and merchants that are still present as the neighborhoods have made transitions. These signs are often unusually shaped and colored, and are evidence of the individuals and places that give a neighborhood its own flavor. The typefaces and shapes represent different time periods and styles. The pole is a recycled light post from the highway removal project.

North Avenue at Cambridge, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

22’h

This sculpture consists of a "drawn" metal cityscape based on the skyline and neighborhoods of Milwaukee, that wraps the building at two elevations. With this project we intended to add a more lively facade to the entrance of the building, a sculptural form that will welcome visitors and tell them something about the nature of the building. The images are based on two patterns. The upper level is drawn from the actual downtown skyline of Milwaukee with its distinctive office towers, residential buildings, and factories. Both modern and historic buildings are represented here, with the silhouettes rendered in a simplified linear manner. The ground level structures are drawn from housing styles of residential neighborhoods, in particular the bungalows for which Milwaukee is famous.

Milwaukee County City Campus Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Aluminum. Upper section 90’, with two lower sections 30’ and 60’

This project was meant to provide a backrail for the high elevations of a skatepark, and to visually unify the various athletic activities that take place in this area.

Lynndale Park Expansion, Lynnwood, Washington

The antlers on the deer have been transformed into electrical and cell phone transmission towers.

“44/46” exhibit, Chicago, Illinois

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, Wisconsin

Lawn ornament, aluminum. 16’h

The pleasures of consumer culture are accompanied by less-desirable social consequences. When we impose one way of life onto another, the bad goes along with the good. The playful piggybank has a hidden agenda.

Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois

DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts

Wood, steel. 11’ x 8’ x 12’

This sculpture makes reference to water flowing over stones for this library near a river. It also provides seating.

Dwight Foster Public Library, Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin

Stainless steel, granite 2 clusters. 12’ x 4’ x 24”

Mirage is based on a classic Midwestern rural icon, the barn. The sides are being cut away by a cityscape, outlined in red and glowing from within. The piece refers to the nostalgia people have for the supposedly-simpler "country life", which is being overtaken by encroaching urbanization.

Elvehjem Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin

Pierwalk 03, Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois

Sheet metal, wood, steel, light. 12’ x 10 ‘ x 8’

The original, partially collapsed road bed is exposed in the grassy area of this park on a hill in downtown Pittsburgh. Layers of old pavers and concrete protrude from the ground with voids and cracks throughout; this project suggests the original level surface with a pattern of hollow logs planted with native flowering plants. As the logs decompose they will form a mulch bed for a sprawling ribbon of plants in the shape of the road.

Frank Curto Park, Persephone Project, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Hollow logs, native plant material. 125’ long

Organized by Stephanie Flom

This sculpture is an architectural fragment made by salvaging a 100-year old barn, in combination with a pier running through the center, and a sod roof. It is a response to the disappearing iconic Midwestern red barn, and an effort to take old building materials and re-direct them out of the waste stream.

Recycled barn material, earthen roof. 16’ x 17’ x 24’

This project was inspired by the Rapunzel fairy tale by the Brother Grimm, and its themes of beauty, vision and longing.

Installed in a 16th c. castle, “Stadt Paradies” exhibit in Darmstadt, Germany

Braided hay. 90’l x 30”d

Curated by Ute Ritschel

Dedicated to the windy climate of Chicago, both literally and politically, this piece consists of eight finger- pointing windsocks that rotate with the wind.

Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois

Nylon windsocks. 8, 10, and 12’ long

The images represent a working man and woman, alternately running toward and against a wheel of symbols of the American Dream - car, house, boat, baby, briefcase.

Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois

Aluminum, steel cable