For Immediate Release: May 20, 2008 Jil Rosentrater, Director Art in Public Places, jil.rosentrater@state.co.us, 303.892.3724 Public Art 101: A Conversation with an Artist

DENVER (May 20, 2008). Public Art 101: A Conversation with nationally acclaimed artist Thomas Sayre will be held June 3, the first of a series of conversations sponsored by the Colorado Council on the Arts. Sayre of North Carolina has been commissioned by the Colorado Council on the Arts and UCDHSC to create public artwork that connects the Research and Education Quads for the Anschutz Medical Campus.  This $700,000 project will be installed in 2009.  Join the Colorado Council on the Arts for a conversation with Thomas Sayre on Tuesday, June 3 from 4-6 p.m. at the Denver Public Library, 10 W. 14th Avenue Parkway, in the Gates Conference Room, on the fourth floor. This is a free event. Please RSVP by emailing rsvpcca@state.co.us.

The opportunity at the Anschutz Medical campus was advertised to artists as “The Big Picture” and the committee envisioned artwork that would create a relationship with the environment,  the buildings and the people on this 24/7 campus.  Thomas Sayre’s piece does just that.  Depending on where one starts, the Education or Research end of the 17th Avenue pedestrian link, the artwork begins and ends with an element which is both the same and, yet, opposite.  At the link in the Education Quad will be a 14-foot-diameter sphere made of earth cast concrete.  Rough, organic, and covered with particles of earth, rocks and pebbles, this sphere commands the space to swirl around it.  It is counterpoint to the surrounding architecture.  It will absorb light; the sun will create shadows within its craggy surface.  At the opposite end, just as one enters the Research Quad, there will also be a 14-foot-diameter sphere functioning with its surroundings much in the same way except that it is made of ¼” polished stainless steel.  Gleaming like a microscope, this bookend sphere reflects the light, changes color with its surrounding and speaks of Father Sky rather than Mother Earth.

In between the bookends, outdoor rooms are located at important pedestrian intersections, but also in places which celebrate and give way to the important architectural landmarks - most particularly the old Fitzsimons Hospital building.  The outdoor rooms play with the form of the sphere and circle in relation to cube and rectangle.  The surfaces play with shiny and rough through the use of cast concrete versus polished terrazzo.  Each is different but related and linked through formal relationships, materials and colors.  Each one contains seating, lighting, electricity for laptops and other communication devises and create a defined stopping place.  All components are lit for nighttime views.

This project provides an amenity for the campus and creates a resonance with some of the essence of medicine; to provoke thinking about how as an enterprise does medicine span the many opposites which it must embrace.  After all, medicine itself is both an art and a science.