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ARTIST HISTORY |
COASTAL ALLUSIONS
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Spanning a fourteen block length along Second Street in the Belmont Shore area of Long Beach this project has been the subject of over forty press articles and reviews. The primary elements of the work are illusionistic “shadows” that appear to be cast from parking meters and onto/into the cement sidewalk. The secondary elements are pictographs and large “shadows” that either extend up the walls of buildings or cover large concrete median and bus pads along Second Street. The work is comprised of over eighty individual images stained, painted, inlaid or carved into stone. All of the images were suggested by community members and used as a basis to generate the images for the project reflecting the history of the area and the character of the community. Funded with parking meter revenues, this "Street Art" project was inspired by the images created by the actual shadows of the newly installed parking meters and the observation that the new concrete sidewalks were easily stained. The artist created a unique process to stain the concrete with a fuzzy shadow-like edge to create a unique sense of place with a sequential site-specific artwork that inserts a bit of surrealism into the popular beach community of Long Beach know as Belmont Shore, the place with the shadows casting from parking meters.
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The centerpiece of Hilltop Park in Signal Hill California, this artwork positions several “gallery walls” with openings that frame the expansive views of the L.A. Basin from this historic promontory. Each “gallery wall” creates the illusion that the view through the hole in the “gallery walls” are paintings or photographs of the landscape. The rich history of this site is celebrated through the use of illusionary shadows, didactic panels, and historic photographs on enamel on steel panels. In the center of the park water mist rises from a blue sculptural element emerging from a large bolder. Reminiscent of the signal fires made by the Tongva Indians that Cabrillo reported seeing in the 1500s, this “mist signal” also marks the exact center of a 1.5 million gallon water tank that the park is built upon. Two awards: one as Public Art & one as a Park.
This tower uses a mechanism to dispense mist a few times a day. Its design references the site's history of oil "gushers", current use as a source of water with an underground reservoir, and the feature for which Signal Hill was named, local Indian tribes used smoke signals to communicate with other locations, including Catalina Island. |
A Functional Lobby constructed in Forced Perspective. Within the lobby the architect, the developer and the artist are represented by ledges, which support columns that appear to raise the actual lobby ceiling. The raised ceiling creates the illusion of an expansive view beyond the lobby walls (notion of raising the ceiling of limitations through collaboration in the Public Art process). |
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CONTACT ARTIST CRAIG CREE STONE - - - - - CONTACT SITE DESIGNER/PROJECT FACILITATOR TIM DREWITT |
