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As an independent study project, art major Marissa Halderman ’09 (Rushland, Pa.) created and installed a public sculpture titled, “Twin Rivers,” that stands parallel to the Delaware River in Easton’s Riverside Park. She worked under the guidance of Alastair Noble, assistant professor of art. In the following paragraphs, Halderman shares her inspiration and process for creating her sculpture.
My experience with public art began last year, when I took intermediate sculpture with Professor Alastair Noble. To my surprise, the class was not a simple continuation of beginning sculpture, but a class dedicated to the creation of public art. I was instantly attracted to the idea as I thought of some of my favorite public artists—Serra, Smithson, Christo, Moore—and the possibility of creating art for the same vast audience.
I set out to design a sculpture that would speak of the geological and historical aspects of Easton. After a quick stroll around Easton, my focus became obvious. The names might have given it away: Two Rivers Landing, Two Rivers Pizza, the National Canal Museum, the River Grill, Riverside Park. Or perhaps, it was the two, majestic rivers themselves that converge and frame the city.
After researching the history of the rivers and their importance to Easton, I began making model after model. I wanted something that was modern, created the feeling of water without its presence, and through its design would speak of the geology and history of Easton. The model I ended up with was everything I wanted it to be. Though originally chosen for a public commission at the Easton Teen Center in the spring of 2007, it was decided that my sculpture would be too costly and time consuming for our limits, so it was temporarily placed on a shelf. However, by the end of the semester, I decided that I wanted to continue to pursue the installation of my sculpture.
The first semester of my junior year was pretty much consumed by my independent study which focused on getting my sculpture built and installed. I started by studying the drawings of famous sculptors, such as Christo, and eventually created my own scaled renderings to show the Public Works personnel in downtown Easton. To my delight, my sculpture was not only accepted by the Public Works personnel, but also by the mayor of Easton. After receiving the approval to build my sculpture, I set to work at once.
Although restrictions of money and time made me reduce the height and use inexpensive materials (my original plan was to use stainless steel) to build a temporary opposed to permanent structure, I was still excited to take on the challenge and show a public work. It was at this stage that things started to get a little more difficult. My plan was to create two, undulating mesh walls that you could walk between, essentially a three-dimensional map of the converging Lehigh and Delaware rivers. Easier said than done; building a four by 17 inch sculpture indoors is quite a challenge.
First, I took satellite images of the rivers, separated them at the converging point (to allow people to pass through), and, using a grid system, transferred the contours onto large sheets of paper about 17 inches long. I then transferred the contours, section by section, onto large sheets of plywood. By drilling screws into the plywood, I made a track that allowed me to bend PVC piping into the shapes of the rivers with the help of a blowtorch.
After the pipes were bent, I cut them at various points and added joints to allow the addition of vertical piping between the contours. This was by far the most difficult part; imagine piecing together a large three-dimensional puzzle that you have only one chance to glue perfectly level, since the glue dries almost instantly.
After the structure was glued and painted, I added screening to the sides and was finally ready for installation. The site was perfect—Riverside Park, parallel to the Delaware River and right upstream from the rivers’ confluence.
Installation was nothing compared to the three previous days of working around the clock to get this thing in one – well, two pieces. However, installation was not without its own challenges. The day was cold, the sky was gray and on the verge of rain. We had to hammer steel beams into the ground at the places where there were verticals to anchor the structure to the ground, which was quite difficult. But after a few hours the sculpture was installed and looked even better than I had expected. The optical moir� effect caused by the two layers of mesh that lined each wall created the fitting aqueous feel I wanted and looked ideal with the river as a backdrop.
Despite my experience with public art being difficult and time-consuming, it was extremely rewarding see the design I had been developing for over a year become a real public work. I hope the sculpture will make people take a minute and think about Easton’s twin rivers, whether it is for their geologic beauty or social and economic significance.
Halderman performed EXCEL research with Noble last summer, for which she built a scale model one tenth the size of Noble’s “Babel” installation in Lima, Peru, and worked with Nobel on other public art projects in the Easton community.