Binary Wall/Datum Line
Binary Wall/Datum Line is a privately commissioned site-specific work of art located in the Central Valley of California. The vastness of the landscape at this location provides an exciting and stimulating opportunity to explore the relationship between the environment and material.
The work consists of 30 sand cast bronze panels arranged in a straight line and spanning a distance of 150 feet. The panels stand at seven feet in height, and vary in width from one to three feet. The spaces between each panel range from six inches to six feet.
Binary Wall/Datum Line references zeros and ones, openings and closings, and surfaces used as a suggestion of measurement of heights, depths or other qualities. In a tandem arrangement with environmental circumstances, such as geology, topography, air flow, temperature, as well as sun light and shadows moving across the valley, the open wall becomes a place where one can experience and immerse oneself in both subtle and dramatic seasonal changes.
The sculpture offers the viewer the opportunity to move through the landscape along a path while winding from one side of the wall to the other, thereby slowing down time and presenting the participant with new and different perspectives to experience. On the human level the wall becomes a marker of time. It offers the visitor a place to contemplate or ponder the environmental, seasonal, physical and personal changes that occur over time.
Sand casting is a more immediate way of casting bronze than the lost wax casting process. It allows the artist a certain amount of “at the moment” freedom for a more fluid expression of the hand at the moment of making. The use of bronze as a material creates a connection to history, bridging the past with the present. It is a timeless material. The color and warmth of bronze as a metal gives the sculpture a deep association with the surrounding environment. The patina (chemical coloring) with its muted colors applied to the panels’ tactile surfaces produces an effect that changes with the time of day, weather conditions and seasons. Texture and surface layering created during the casting process become direct references to and pronounce the environmental circumstances.
