Bryan Memorial Medical

Prairie Dream Cycle

Fabricated Aluminum

35’ x 100’ x 35’

1993

This piece was commissioned for installation in the central lobby/waiting/traffic space of a medical office building at Bryan Memorial Medical Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. The space and use were such that it required a suspended work and the client wanted something that related to ‘life on the plains region of Nebraska’.

I conceived a piece that was made up from a series of symbolic images that reference life, as experienced in Nebraska along with other more universal aspects of human experience everywhere. I used images of the natural world combined with those of human culture and civilization through the ages. The fact that so much of life and the world consists of cycles of all kinds became an obvious concept for this piece.

The piece has four figures representing the natural world. Air, Water, Sun and Earth are each presented throughout the piece. Above those are two ribbon forms. One represents human history and culture, while the other represents the sky as it changes color throughout each day. Along the side, is a series of long undulating plates representing the grass fields that make up much of Nebraska. Whether planted with corn or wheat, these are painted to show the cyclical coloration of those grasses throughout the season.

I then included two standing abstracted figures that attach to the floor on each of two levels. These stand at both ends of the piece and represent some kind of ‘Guardian’ entity that preserves the entire place and processes/energy included there. This concept has been included in many of my works in subsequent years. A sort of reference to another dimension of our human nature. What we call ‘Spirituality’ in its many and varied forms. The fascination with unseen and undefined forces we sense around us, in many places.