IMA building exterior under construction, September 2014.
View of new transit center from building, looking northwest.
One really great aspect of the stairwell project is the location of the building, adjacent to Denver's Union Station transit redevelopment area. I'm both excited and nervous about this project! It's a bit of a leap… working small and thinking big!
Level five, the tallest space, with standpipe somewhat obscured by our guide
Level two standpipe looks particularly awkward to work around.
The stairwell project was approved by the client and my first visit to the site was exciting, but also a little worrisome. On the stairwell plans, we'd identified a standpipe (for firefighting purposes) running vertically through the space... however it looked a lot more innocuous on paper than it did in real life! Here are some photos of the rough space under construction in mid-September. It was obvious that the artwork, once installed, needed to somehow overwhelm the standpipe rather than the other way around!
Hilary discovers a box inexplicably mounted to center of level one wall, later relocated!
Stairwell elevation with walls for art application highlighted in green.
Over the summer I worked with art consultant Hilary DePolo on a proposal to use enlargements of my collages to enliven the interior stairwell of a new office building adjacent to Denver's Union Station.
The concept was to encourage people to use the stairs by creating a welcoming and visually stimulating environment. In addition, another artist would add a motion-activated sound installation to further animate the space.
I worked with the building plans to develop a scale for the original collages that I felt would translate when enlarged and applied to an entire landing wall. The image needed to be clear from a distance and interesting graphically as a viewer climbed closer. Because I am working with images culled from magazines, printed with a dot pattern, it was critical to make some samples of what the enlargement might be like.
We eventually settled on an enlargement of approximately 900%. The lowest level had a low floor-to-ceiling height, the top level had a tall floor-to-ceiling height, and the remaining three floors had the same proportions. The original collages were done on boards that reflected those proportions. Each original panel was one foot wide but the heights would vary to accommodate the floor-to-ceiling height differences.
"MAR 01, 2013," original collage on paper by Janice McDonald, 7.5 x 5.5," ©2013.
"Harvesting" the potential collage elements from the postcard.
This is the first collage created for the "Overlooked Archives" show. The only thing that arrived on March 1st, 2013 was a coupon/postcard from Bed, Bath & Beyond. It made me wonder if the concept of working with each day's mail would provide enough interest and content. My persistence paid off though and the resulting body of work and show were strong. Thankfully!
I referenced this collage in my artist statement. Most people could imagine where the pieces came from once I pointed it out... there are common elements delivered to all our mailboxes.