Students and local artist Randy Walker collaborate on outdoor sculpture at Roosevelt High School

Connection Gallery installation comes on heels of front door mosaic Artist Randy Walker is excited to have the Connections Gallery located in his own neighborhood. He lives just blocks from Roosevelt High School, and enjoyed collaborating with students over two years to create this piece that celebrates connections. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)[/caption] By TESHA M. CHRISTENSEN The Connections Gallery on the front lawn of Roosevelt High School is located just blocks from sculptor Randy Walker’s home. It’s a piece of art he’s excited to have in his neighborhood, one he brings his family to on the way to the library or Baker’s Wife. His two-year-old son seeks out a picture of a dolphin found in one of the collages every time they stop. It’s part of the neighborhood, and part of their daily lives. It isn’t only Walker who feels like that. So do the student artists that also worked on the sculpture over the past two years. And the number of artists involved with the piece will only grow, increasing the connections fostered by this one piece of public art. “I think it will be fascinating watching the piece change over time, seeing how it’s engaged and what the contents will be as classes and collaborators change,” said Walker. The sculpture consists of 14 steel frames that radiate outward from a circular concrete bench.  Each of these screens is broken down into divisions that are variations of five typical sizes, all based on a 8-1/2x11 piece of paper. “No two screens are alike,” observed Walker. Like a rice paper screen or stained glass window, each metal frame is divided into a smaller cells of acrylic panels. Within these panels students are able to insert pictures, words – anything that they can create on paper. Finally, each of the acrylic divisions is joined by strands of fiber that are routed to the top of each screen and across the central space of the sculpture. “By doing this, we were able to conceive of a space to be in, rather than an object to look at,” explained Walker. “The Connections Gallery is a wonderful tool for teachers to use in interdisciplinary units with arts integration,” said Roosevelt’s International Baccalaureate Diploma Program Coordinator Candida Gonzalez. “The ability to physically make the connections, using the fibers, provides another avenue for students to deepen their learning in a holistic way. The Gallery is also a powerful symbol of our commitment to growing the arts program at Roosevelt.” It changed her perspective Local resident and student artist Lee Cygan said that she learned so much about the process that it takes to develop a public art piece. “It gave me a great perspective on what goes into it,” she said.[/caption] Two years ago, Standish resident Lee Cygan was a freshman at Roosevelt. Her English teacher encouraged her to get involved in this art project. She began attending meetings, and the students (along with Forecast Public Art) selected Randy Walker as their artist. Next they began learning about the concept of public art from Walker, recalled Cygan. They talked about permanence, impermanence, meaning, how an artwork relates to its site and community. They gave input on Walker’s design, suggesting that the screens have different sized patterns within the grid format. They were also part of the Kickstarter campaign that raised $8,583 for the project.$8,583 for the project. “I learned so much about the process and everything that it takes to develop a public art piece,” said Cygan. “It gave me a great perspective on what goes into it.” And even more than that, it provided her an experience she won’t forget. There’s a piece of artwork in her own neighborhood that she helped create. Now a junior at Perpich Center for Arts Education, Cygan intends to study some form of art at college. “I was most surprised at the depth of thought and level of sincerity displayed by the group of students I worked with at Roosevelt,” observed Walker. “As we explored what public art could be (i.e., not just a bronze statue), the students really embraced the possibilities and took off with them.  They had never been exposed to the idea of public art as an open-ended experiment where anything is possible. It made me wonder about what other areas might hold the possibility of sparking their imaginations.” Open to curious community members One of the key decisions students helped make was deciding where the Connections Gallery should be located. Cygan noted that they scouted locations throughout the school property, but finally settled on a space in the front along 28th Ave. “The fact that we placed this structure front and center on 28th Ave. was not accidental,” said Walker. “We wanted the sculpture to be visible and accessible to the community. The activity of the street with the library across the way, the bus stop right there, and the high pedestrian and car traffic, was the perfect setting to create a place where curious members of the community might approach and enter the space.” A lot of people made it real Once the group was sure of the big design moves, Walker produced detailed digital construction drawings that would eventually be reviewed by a structural engineer and fabricated locally. “Because each of the 14 screens was unique, this process was time consuming and left no room for error,” said Walker.  He pointed out the grids, that form each of the screens, are interlocking individual parts with notches and holes laser cut so that they would fit with a tolerance on the order of thousandths of an inch that would not require any welding at all. “You can imagine what a mess would result in just one notch being off,” Walker said. Acrylic panels were laser cut and drilled at a separate facility. Once the metal was laser cut, it was fabricated by Hans Early Nelson at his Longfellow workshop, Primitive Precision. Roosevelt students toured Nelson’s workshop last winter to see firsthand how he works. “Another great part about working as a public artist is that you never work completely in isolation,” pointed out Walker. “While you may come up with an idea on a personal level, it takes a lot of people to make it real.” Come by and drink coffee on the bench Throughout the spring of 2014, students and staff worked to create works of art for the first installation of the piece. Artist Keegan Xavi worked with students to create collages for the first exhibit inside the Connections Gallery. The collage project was another way for them to see connections—this time between text and image. Students created Dada poems, where meaning is separated from word, and they “painted” with colors and images they tore from magazines. The Gallery was officially unveiled at the Aug. 28 Back to School event at Roosevelt. “The Connections Gallery is more than a sculpture, it’s really an outdoor gallery,” said Walker. “It is a gathering place where students and teachers can display their work in a public setting. The material content that will be displayed and the way it is organized will be up to the students and teachers of Roosevelt. There is no final, finished installation. I hope this open-endedness creates dialogues and interactions, as well as reveals previously hidden connections.” “We hope to give the community multiple opportunities to engage with the school in making art to be displayed in the Gallery. It has added another element of beauty to the neighborhood. Come on by and drink your coffee with friends on the bench!” encouraged Gonzalez. “Thank you to the community for all the support they have given us with this project!”