Courtesy of Infinite Impact
Roaming downtown Columbus, it’s hard to miss the colorful cloud-like structure just around the corner from the Palace Theatre and Capitol Square, hanging over the intersection of Gay and High streets.
The blue and red sculpture known as Current is made up of 78 miles of twine and weighs over 700 pounds. Created by artist Janet Echelman, this 229-foot-long floating sculpture is revolutionary in many ways.
When the piece took several years to come to fruition, artists and community members are excited about the opportunities and recognition it could bring to the city.
Behind the art
Echelman has been creating art for more than 30 years and receiving countless accolades along the way.
She was awarded such fellowships as the Guggenheim Fellowship and Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellowship, and was named an Architectural Digest Innovator in 2012. She also led a TED Talk about art and imagination in 2011.
Echelman’s knotted sculptures are inspired by netting she saw fishermen using when she lived in Mahabalipuram, India. The material was lighter and less expensive than other materials she’d previously used and allowed more freedom for the forms she wanted to create.
Roughly two decades later, she’s created more than 50 of these intricate sculptures that have been featured around the world in places such as Shanghai, Sydney, London, Porto, Boston and New York.
Current is one of the few permanent sculptures she has created, and it’s the first permanent installation to stretch over a roadway.
Courtesy of Janet Echelman Inc.
Making the masterpiece
Current began the same way many of Echelman’s previous sculptures have: with extensive location research.
Columbus’ nickname “The Arch City” influenced the location and meaning after High Street’s illuminated arches caught Echelman’s attention. Once a temporary crime-prevention measure, they evolved to hold power lines during the days of the streetcar in Columbus.
“That idea of bringing light, of reaching across a major thoroughfare, really grabbed a hold of me. And then I started thinking about the currents of electricity, and also the currents of the Scioto River nearby,” Echelman says. “So this piece is pulling together the current moment of downtown revitalizing and becoming a very active urban center amidst this history from more than 100 years ago.”
The Scioto River inspiration is seen inthe blue hues that appear in the sculpture, while the red is meant to represent the earth that was removed from the center of town to make the bricks used in many of Columbus’ early buildings.
Once the location and concept came together, Echelman began constructing a digital model using a program her husband, David, helped develop over the years.
Digital models help visualize the piece and simulate the physical stress the installation would experience in its environment.
Even after the model is constructed, it needs to be approved by building departments and a fire marshal.
“It takes nine months to fabricate my art once we’ve already completed all of the design and engineering,” Echelman says.
Leaving its mark
Now that the installation is complete, Echelman is excited for the public to interact with it.
“I like my work to feel very accessible and understandable to everyone,” she says. “I like it to be over the street because that’s one of the few places everybody feels entitled to be. Not everyone
feels they belong in an art museum, but everyone entitled to be in the street.”
Looking back, Echelman says this process would not have been possible without the help of Jeff Edwards, president, chief executive officer and chairman of IBP.
“It took an urban visionary,” Echelman says. “Jeff Edwards spoke to me and asked if I would come to Columbus, his hometown, imagine an artwork to pull these threads of downtown into a single tapestry. That’s how a work like this gets made.”
More public art pieces, like Current, have popped up around the city, and Mayor Andrew Ginther says they are a part of a larger plan for art in the city.
“From murals to sculptures to performance, our downtown is coming into its own. We’re investing in the local while highlighting the global,” Ginther says. “We’re currently doing the first ever master plan for public art in the city’s history and we expect the trajectory of arts and culture in the city to skyrocket.”
Although the piece came together with the help of Edwards and the city, Current was donated to and will be taken care of by the Columbus Museum of Art for future generations to grow and change with the piece.
“I hope that throughout the course of you life, you’ll take photos there with different people at different moments and you’ll see yourself change as the sculpture changes,” Echelman says. “It’s a work that embraces change, as its very form is never the same as the wind blows. It is constantly changing its shape. Yet it has integrity, so it is always itself, while always in flux.”
Rachel Karas is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at rkaras@cityscenemediagroup.
