Client: City of Evanston
Location: Evanston, IL, United States
Completion date: 2016
Artwork budget: $25,000
Project Team
Artist
Janet Austin
Public Art Agent
Gay Riseborough
City of Evanston, Public Art Commission
Industry Resource
Gail Gilbert
Cerise Films
Overview
Attached is a mosaic and steel insect whose nest is a story jar extolling the virtues of wasps representing all creatures. Included is a John Muir paraphrase on nature. Viewers are drawn to the bee like creature, bees being championed in today's eco movement. This wasp should be no less important. It is made even lovelier with a baroque pattern of yellow and black glass mosaic.
Goals
The piece is viewed from 360°, allowing visitors to read the poem encircling the "story vase" nest. The surrounding landscape plants hide the base and discourage children from climbing the sculpture. The plants are chosen because they are native and support a healthy biodiverse ecosystem which reiterates the message.
Process
The City of Evanston, public art commission, has collaborated by including landscaping in the location chosen for it's high traffic, pedestrians, bikes and cars.
Additional Information
The prose: I pollinate, I build nests fit for a queen, I consume swarms of parasitic pests. Call me wasp, yellow jacket, hornet, vespa, we coexist. When one tugs at a single thing in nature he finds it attached to the rest of the universe.