More than just eye candy

On Wednesday, June 25, four artists set up in the Place d’Orléans Shopping Centre to showcase their design proposals for the east-end’s newest development. The public was encouraged to record their comments, which will be used by the selection committee to determine a winner.

The four finalists were whittled down from a list of 21 local artists that responded to the city’s call for submissions. The short-listed designs were chosen based on artistic excellence, architectural integration, sensitivity to the contemporary style of the building and durability.

According to Erin Mauhinney, the City of Ottawa’s Public Art administrator, the selection committee picked the final four proposals based on a one-page written concept and past experience with public art. The artists were then required to create maquettes or detailed sketches so the public could view the designs and share their input.

Armed with clipboards, residents walked the short circuit, speaking with artists and jotting down their comments for the selection committee.

West-end artist Karl Ciesluk offered visitors a Pathway to Stardom. His black granite sculptures, which could come in stainless steel if the city prefers, represent the journey of anyone’s life as well as the evolution of an artist, he explains.

Five sculptures dot the path leading toward the entrance of the building. Starting with a black block, each piece grows the points of the star, symbolizing another stage in the morph toward a star that lifts from the ground and stands alone.

Calling the black granite “pure colour,” Ciesluk says he chose the understated elegance because it would go nicely with the multi-coloured glass façade of the arts centre.

Hull’s Jean-Yves Vigneau, meanwhile, decided to recapture the small wooded area that was chopped down to make room for the arts centre. Twenty-five tall aluminum trees with colourful tops that move in the breeze create a sort of cultivated forest people can walk through, he says. “The colours are like foliage,” he adds. “They shake in the wind like leaves.”

The colours chosen for the treetops are oriented with those in the building’s stained glass, Vigneau explains, adding that some of the trees on the property have been re-used in the construction of the project, so his cultivated forest follows the architect’s idea.

Visitors standing in the midst of the piece looking up would find it’s like staring up at the ceiling of a cathedral, Vigneau indicates.

An untitled piece by Maskull Lasserre takes the stage outdoors. A bronze piano accompanied by a partially carved limestone boulder from the site act as permanent props, the artist explains. A short distance from the set lies a stainless steel boulder identical to the one next to the piano. “(It’s) inviting in some way,” Lasserre says. “It’s not building jewellery.”

He notes that the stool carved into the rock allows people to take a seat at the instrument as if participating in a performance.

The only piece to incorporate lighting in any noticeable way was that proposed by Jennifer Macklem and Kip Jones. A torch curves up into the sky, just above a bench made from local hardwood. While sunlight would catch the colours in the structure, artificial light would filter through the coloured glass cut-outs dotting the frame during the evening. “At night it would have a completely different impact,” Macklem says, explaining the design responds to the colourful window that will be the building’s focal point.

The torch, she adds, is an emblem of what culture offers and symbolizes hope and enlightenment. It is also a metaphor for being drawn to the flame, Macklem says.