Client: Oregon State University

Location: Corvallis, OR, United States

Completion date: 2014

Artwork budget: $53,000

Project Team

Artist

Alex Hirsch

Public Art Agent

Saralyn Hilde

Oregon Arts Commission

Architect

Weston Becker

Opsis Architecture

Industry Resource

Peter Kaufmann

Peters Studio

Industry Resource

Anderson Construction

Industry Resource

Culver Glass

Industry Resource

PAE/Luma Lighting

Overview

Based on an original watercolor painting, this 5' x 19', two-sided work is sandblasted and painted with vitreous enamels. A sound insulating laminate reduces transference of sound through the glass membrane.

Goals

Elemental Endowment pays tribute to Oregon State University’s unique status as the only public university in the United States to be named a Land, Sea, Space and Sun Grant institution. As such, OSU offers extensive programming and courses related to agriculture, oceanography, outer space and energy. Each panel of this art work evokes those elements of land, sun, space and water through pattern, abstraction, and color. Alex Hirsch hopes her imagery will take people somewhere beyond what they are seeing, outside of the interiors of the Memorial Union where the work is located, and simultaneously deeper into themselves. She designed the composition to read well from both sides since it is installed in a wall between a reception area and an event space.

Process

Alex Hirsch coordinated the development and execution of this commission in consultation with the architecture firm, lighting designer, contractor, installation expert, state arts organization and fabrication studio.