SELECTED WORK

HEART AND MIND

Please scroll to the bottom of the page to view a Quicktime movie of the sculpture

2011         11’ h 9’ w 53’ l

material: stained glass, silver painted steel, cable
stained glass artisan: Abby Gitlitz
CAD modeling: Michael Born, Boston, MA
architect: SRG Partnership, Portland, OR
site: Dow Hall at the Oregon Institute of Technology, Klamath Falls, OR
engineering: Nabil Taha, Precision Structural Engineering, Klamath Falls, OR
commissioned by the Oregon Arts Commission
photographs by Clements/ Howcroft

Forty-four leaded glass panels hang from the ceiling of Dow Hall’s central entranceway. Hung at various heights and angles they present a shifting array of colorful, overlapping forms that change as a viewer traverses the main east-west corridor.

Vibrant with translucent colored glass and framed in silver-painted steel, each panel incorporates interior silver lines—the “lead” in leaded glass—that create drawings relating to OIT’s scientific culture and educational mission.

While the “galleries” of stained glass are engaging in themselves, there is a larger and more profound compositional dynamic at play—a 3D anamorphosis. When seen from specific vantage points, the panels optically collapse to form epic images: an anatomical human heart and a cross section of the human brain. These macrocosmic images slowly come together as one approaches perspectivally specific “sweet spots”; subsequently they disperse into individual panels as one walks past.

This visual phenomenon embodies themes of intellectual rigor, serendipity and relativity. As such it is a metaphor for the spirit of investigation and discovery at Oregon Tech.