Client: Sacramento Municipal Utility Company

Overview

This site-specific piece was created for Sacramento Municipal Utility District in 2022. Dimensions are variable, but has a length of 55 ft, materials used were Tyvek, acrylic paint and steel.

I took cues from the exemplary midcentury design of this historic Dreyfuss and Blackford building, as well as Wayne Thiebaud’s Water City mosaic mural on the exterior of the building. I drew further inspirations from worldwide papercutting traditions (papel picado, scherenschnitt, wayang, wycinanki, jianzhi), and some modern artists I deeply admire: Herbin, Girard, Eames, Brancusi.

I aimed to create a dynamic artwork that would bring energy and movement to the space, engaging the folks who would regularly utilize the stairwell. I wanted the geometric shapes to morph and coalesce along the length of the individual scrolls like a secret language. The story the scrolls tell is one of complex transformation, how we’re able to transform varied natural resources into electricity. The gradient colors are a bit of a nod to the electromagnetic spectrum.

Sage Sengo and I worked together to design a steel suspension apparatus that would blend in with the aesthetics of the stairwell, while supporting and enabling the elements of the artwork to best occupy the space in the middle of the stairs.

Goals

The SMUD Headquarters is on the National Register of Historic Places and the recent rehabilitation was designed to achieve LEED Gold certification. I the process of the renovation an previously enclosed interior stairwell was exposed. The purpose of the artwork, Energy Scrolls, in the space was to make the stairwell even more irresistible, encouraging SMUD employees to interact, exchange ideas, and exercise as they used the stairs each day. This building also features an original 1961 exterior mural by artist Wayne Thiebaud, internationally acclaimed, long-time Sacramento resident. It was a real honor to create a piece for a building with so much significance for our community,

Process

This project required significant planning on the part of the SMUD team in having vision for this unique space and allocating funds for it's enhancement. Many thanks go to art consultant, Shelly Willis, my main liason at SMUD, Sandra Kopp, and Drew Chalstrom and Kimberly Guzman of Buehler Engineering. Additionally, I worked with two different fabricators: Sage Sengo for the all of the steel work, and Evgenii Dvoretckii for all the laser cutting. I also had a wonderful team assisting me, made up of artist/colleagues and former students, including Eric Wood, Jen Stract, Terry Peterson. John Pemberton, Katie Mackey, and Elise Cole-Da Cruz. Last but not least, this project would have been impossible to pull off without the expert scaffolding from Unique Scaffold.

Additional Information

I needed a way to differentiate the five scrolls, so I decided to name them after following five remarkable women: Sonia Delaunay was a Ukranian born artist known for her bold use of color and geometric patterns which appeared in her paintings, textiles, and set designs. I admire her long career her interdisciplinary nature. Hilma af Klint was a Swedish artist created some of the first non-objective abstract works in Western art. The signature orange wall at SMUD made me think of one of her major works. Born and raised here in Sacramento, Ray Eames, was an American designer known for her playful style and outstanding color sensibilities. She, and husband Charles, were acclaimed for their design of architecture, toys, films, textiles, furniture, and graphics. Maria Telkes was a Hungarian born biophysicist/inventor, nicknamed The Sun Queen for her work on early solar technology. With SMUD’s logo being a sun and their commitment to renewables, it seemed appropriate to name a banner after her. Stephanie Kwolek was a Polish-American chemist who invented Kevlar for Dupont, the same company that brought us Tyvek, the paper-like product this art piece is made of. These two synthetic spun fibers were both developed around the same time the SMUD building was built.