Cloudbreak, 2008. Glass and Steel,14 x 41 x 2’
This work was created for the Denver Justice Center jury assembly room.
In this work, light is a metaphor for insight and clarity in justice as it is throughout the Justice Center. As potential jurists sit and wait for their selection and instruction, the sun from the outside glows from behind the clouds as if from a higher plane of awareness. The shifting color and light as it plays over and through the glass is a meditation on transcendent beauty and it calls on each individual to reach for his or her higher self while taking on the serious responsibility as a juror.
Day and Night/Inside and Out
A key feature of CLOUDBREAK is that it can be seen from both inside and outside the building and is visible during the day and at night. The different lighting within and without causes it to be an ever changing experience. At night spotlights on the wall inside make this glowing a painting of light when seen from the outside and during the day as the sun moves, the experience of the wall changes.
The amorphous, luminous cloud of color and glass is held within the structure of the grid using the visual language reiterated throughout the architecture.
Details of Construction
Guided by the original design of the metal “reveal” included in the architect’s plans for this wall, a substantial metal structure (whose details will be determined by an engineer) holds the thousands of glass tubes in place. The original plaster wall has been replaced by a wall of approximately 11,200 glass tubes so that some of the translucency of the window on the left is continued through this wall.
Behind the wall of glass tubes the etched glass frit “skin” of the building allows the morning light from the east to illuminate the wall. The tubes vary in dimension between 1.5” to 3” in diameter. They are between 12” to 24” long. The side of the tube wall which is toward the outside glazing is covered with a permanent colored film with the altered photographic image of the clouds. (this is a photograph taken here in Colorado.) The glass transmits this color as well as the light, pulling it into the room.
