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Chicago Cultural Center, Palauan Landscape Arts Club of Chicago, Member Exhibition Lettuce Coral Emerald FishZhou B, CAVA Oak Park Art League New Works Christopher Gallery Prairie State, Poetry of Sculpture, Prey Arc Gallery, Collage/Assemblage Gwendolyn Brooks: The Oracle of Bronzeville The Art Center Highland Park, CLICK! Photography Exhibition with my Ocean Decade: Ripple
Tree Project “If the trees are dying, what will happen to the birds?” asks sculptor, Margot McMahon. You can find her “Flock” and “Perch” larger than life song birds and an owl in a grand old elm on Lake Shore Drive south of 57th Street. Another artist, Nicolette Ross will etch repeating fabric patterns around a tall arching Elm trunk near the Dusable Museum. Or, Vivian Vissar, who bends trimmed branches into hanging pods, encourages quiet sanctuaries for insects, birds and people’s imaginations in tree in Armour Park. Taylor Wallace will be carving a large tree in McGuane Park into upward twisting spirals. The Johnsons will carve a SOS Morse Code pattern across a barkless trunk. These artists want to draw attention to the trees and the gifts they offer in Chicago Sculpture International’s “Tree Project.”. That these sculptures are in trees draws attention to the fact that these trees are dying and pays tribute to their decades or centuries old life. Jane Goodall states, “When I put my hands on a thousand year old tree and sense the sap flowing, it brings me to wonder about all this tree has seen in its lifetime.” If so many stressed trees are dying due to climate change, how can we maintain the ecosystem of these trees in our city’s parks? Insects, nesting birds , and burrowing squirrels need the decaying trees to find safe haven. Migrating birds need a safe harbor to feed and rest along the Lake Michigan flyway. If the trees are taken down, there are less insects to feed from, less branches for rest and more wind to navigate. Climate change and invasive species have brought to our park’s trees the ash borer, Dutch Elm Disease, drought flooding, and erratic temperature Margot McMahon, Outdoor Committee Co-chair of Chicago Sculpture International, has embraced this Tree Project as it bridges her being both a life long environmentalist and sculptor. “I hope for my flying song birds and owl, in an elm overhanging Lake Shore drive, to be a reminder every day to reduce our carbon footprint and give the earth a chance to heal. The wood I am carving for the Tree Project is from a 283 year old Maple blown over in hurricane force winds off Lake Michigan in 2011. In almost 300 years that tree had not met so fierce a wind. By carving birds from the ravaged tree, the sculptures perpetuates it’s vitality. These carved birds placed in a dead tree emphasizes the loss, reminds us to reduce our carbon emissions to help reverse global climate change.” “Flock” |
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The sculpture "Enlighten" symbolizes the 50 year passionate effort for Enlighten that have been the hallmark of Soka Gakkai International (SGI) in promoting racial equality. The sculpture responds to an incident observed by Daisaku Ikeda fifty years ago when an African American child was denied the opportunity to play ball with white children in Lincoln Park. The boys who posed for this sculpture are African American and Caucasian, who live and play together on one block and attend school together. They have grown up knowing a more peaceful and just world in no small part due to the efforts to promote justice by SGI. The bud of the lotus blossom, a symbol of enlightenment in Buddhist thought, can be found throughout the sculpture in repeated forms that become the image of these boys and in open space between their torsos. I used the form of the lotus bud in the calves and thighs and the incised lines on the ball or in full blossom reference in a boy’s hair. The lotus bud promises the blossom of this effort and these two boys lives now beginning at age seven with playing together. The sculpture "Enlighten" is a marker on the ‘history of the justice timeline’ for how far we have come in these 50 years promoting racial equality. The reminder that our work is not done is represented by their budding youth as we imagine what their lives will become with this as their beginning. Peace Garden |
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| Page Top |  Ecosystem Number 1 Bridgeport Art Center Lincoln Park, Illinois January 2012 to 2013 The sun offers energy by the solar panel that pumps water up which is distributed by the wind turning the weather vane, human dancers, on top. Viewers add water, the wind distributes the water which is pumped by the sun creating a system for the sedum to thrive. If any one of these contributors, sun, wind, rain and humans don't contribute, the sedum perishes. |
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"Cuddling Intelligence" 170 Middle school students collaborated on creating the concepts, design and sewing twelve five foot soft sculptures symbolizing Howard Gardener's theory of Multiple Intelligences. The students identified the intelligence they were interested in, created an individual symbol which was incorporated into the groups sculpture that now hangs in Julian's four story atrium. |
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