News of the Arroyo
Title: | Art to the Rescue |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2005-02-01 |
Summary: | February 1, 2005 � Artist Daniel McCormick has installed a piece, in conjuction with the Armory Center for the Arts and the City of Pasadena, in the Arroyo Seco. The sculpture, �The Watershed�, is located under the Colorado Street Bridge and will perform an ecological role. |
Author: | Jennifer Gay Summers |
Publication: | Whole Life Times |
Content: | Art and nature have merged together in “The Watershed,” an unusual sculpture created in downtown Pasadena to help restore the ecological beauty of the Arroyo Seco River. Using only natural materials such as mud, twigs and branches from the existing environment, Daniel McCormick, a California artist with national recognition, invented and installed one long, continuous sculptur- al form in the Arroyo, shaping it to the contours of eroded stream banks. Eventually, native plant species will take root in the sculpture, effectively making the art a part of the earth. Pasadena and Arroyo Seco officials studied erosion patterns at the site and helped McCormick to design a sculpture that would assist the flow of water and serve as a mechanism of erosion control. Just under the busy Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena, McCormick also molded a catch basket at the foot of a pipe that flows into the Arroyo Seco. The basket, in the form of a net, will trap and filter litterbug and natural debris in an environmentally clean, aesthetic way. McCormick was inspired to create his unique contribution in response to the Armory Center for the Arts’ outreach exhibition reGenerations: Environmental Art in California, part of The Tender Land; Pasadena Festival of Art, History, Music, and Science. McCormick’s sculpture is biodegradable and will disintegrate over time, taking with it the artist’s presence, but leaving a restored and rejuvenated river. For more on the McCormick piece, go to www.armoryarts.org. |
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