Scott Parsons
Art Studio and Wunderkammer
North Lecture Theatres are finished
The North Lecture Theatre terrazzo is finished!
posted January 13, 2010 | Comments (0)
Washington Pavilion Exhibition
I will be exhibiting at the Visual Arts Center at the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science in Sioux Falls from December 4, 2009 through February 4, 2010. The reception is December 4th from 5:30–7:30 pm. This show pairs visual artists with poets. My work is a collaboration with poet and writer Elizabeth Oness.
posted November 17, 2009 | Comments (0)
CCIS Terrazzo Installation
I am currently at work on installing a nearly 40,000 sq. ft. terrazzo floor for the University of Alberta in Edmonton. The design is a collaboration with the ONPA and Flad Architectural design team for the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences. The principal organizing element I have utilized for the floor design is to treat the surface with overlapping and interwoven imagery to visually bring together the multiple fields of inquiry: Integrated Earth and Landscape Management, Nanostructures and New Materials, Resource Geosciences, Chemical Biology and Proteomics, Planetary Dynamics, and Physics. To accomplish this, I began by searching out what we share in common. Art, like science, shares a deeply rooted bond in an emotional, if not spiritual, sense of awe, and artists, like scientists, often begin their work from careful observation. The world is full of expression and gesture if we remain receptive to the unexpected, the overlooked, or the forgotten. Walking across this floor should offer a sense of journey and discovery, like education itself. I would like for people to come, think, sit, and wonder—bridging their ideas and thoughts to what it is they have come here to study and what they see in the floor, combing what Loren Eiseley describes as the Immense Journey, one to the interior of the human mind.
What follows are a series of images of the terrazzo installation process underway. The terrazzo work is being performed by Franklin Terrazzo and ANTEX Western; PCL is the General Contractor. Final completion of the work will be in 2010.
The first step is to mitigate any cracking in the concrete subfloor with a crack suppression system. Then the entire floor is coated with a flexible membrane that will allow the terrazzo to float over the concrete subfloor.
The design is printed out at one-hundred percent actual size and laid across the floor.
Then the design is cut into the membrane with a cutting wheel on a grinder.
Brass and zinc divider strip is attached to the floor with tacks or hot glue.
All joints are either soldered or brazed.
Then the strip is glued to the floor with epoxy, here is a detail of the strip work.
Final adjustments are made to the divider strip before the epoxy is completely set-up.
The epoxy resin is mixed.
Stone chips, recycled glass, mine byproducts, etc. are mixed into the epoxy.
The epoxy matrix is spread across the membrane with a trowel.
This is what the epoxy looks like in its rough form before grinding and polishing.
The epoxy is ground smooth with diamonds or carborundum and plastic disks progressively from 25 to 400 grit.
During the grinding stage, an epoxy grout is applied to remove any pinholes.
Applying the sealer before the final wax coat and polish.
Here is a section after sealing.
Detail in the North Lecture Theatres. Note the different thicknesses of the divider strip and how that helps to suggest spatial relationships and depth in the floor design. Some strips will be easier to see because of their thickness, others will await discovery under the right lighting conditions and viewing angle.
| Comments (0)| Tags: Art in Public Places, terrazzo
Porcelain Tile Installation at Augustana College
Installation performed with the Creative Edge Master Shop (Fairfield, Iowa).
posted September 07, 2009 | Comments (0)
Upcoming Show in Sioux Falls
I will be exhibiting at the East Bank Gallery in Sioux Falls, South Dakota June 30 to August 29, 2009.
The opening reception is August 7 from 5:00 to 9:00 pm.
It’s a Yellow Day!
Pouring the yellow epoxy mix at the University of Madison, Wisconsin.
posted July 01, 2009 | Comments (0)
Bronze Pour for the Turtle Island Monument
Pouring turtle parts for the Berkeley project at BronzeAge Art Casting in Sioux Falls. The bronze is approximately 2,150 degrees Fahrenheit at this point.
posted May 28, 2009 | Comments (0)
Installation of the Solstice Window, Durango, Colorado
Maneuvering the Solstice Window into place with the assistance of a crane, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado. You can just see Hesperus Peak (Dibé Ntsaain) in the background of this photograph, which defines the northern corner of the Navajo nation.
posted May 24, 2009 | Comments (0)
Installation of Algorithmic Tapestry in Madison, Wisconsin
Making good use of my knee pads while installing divider strip for the Algorithmic Tapestry terrazzo floor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. More installation photos.
| Comments (0)| Tags: terrazzo
Installation of Wingscape in Gunnison, Colorado
Sealing the stone column during the installation of Wingscape at Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado.
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