DENVER - Sun Spot is a tri-piece artwork for Denver's new Municipal Animal Shelter at the South Platte Campus.
The main piece is a 20-tall dog sculpture located at the southeast corner of the site, adjacent to the South Platte Trail and visible from Interstate 25. The form of the dog is an amalgam of many different dogs, in effect becoming "every dog." Its "sitting dog" pose is welcoming and friendly.
The sculpture is made from a steel skeleton covered with 90,000 stainless steel pet tags. The movement of the tags in the breeze coupled with sunlight and colored LEDs at night will make the surface of the sculpture scintillate with constant light and movement. The dog sits on a raised berm planted with native shrubs.
The second piece is a suspended, 6-inches-in-diameter "communal collar" located in the lobby of the new animal shelter. Sized to fit the giant dog sculpture, it is made from blackened steel and gold aluminum with stainless steel chain, buckle, and stud details.
Patterns cut and etched into the collar are derived from the plants around the dog sculpture. Approximately 100 individual strands of chain hang from the collar and will hold up to 7000 tags. The public will be invited to customize engraved pet tags to commemorate both old and newly adopted pets. These will be attached to the chains, slowly accumulating to become a communal gesture of animal stewardship.
The final art element is a set of approximately 50 etched tags marking the botanical and common names of plants along the South Platte Trail west of the Municipal Campus. Using pet tags to "name" the plants emphasizes their value and stewardship efforts to restore the South Platte River riparian environment.
Denver companies Demiurge LLC and Silo Workshop were involved in this project.
Demiurge LLC, a custom sculpture production studio located in Denver, is building the dog sculpture. They worked with Laura and Tom to translate an artist maquette of the sculpture into a three-dimensional computer model, which was then used to cut the structural skeleton. Demiurge LLC, founded by Joe Riche in 1999, specializes in fabricating large-scale sculpture and public art.
Silo Workshop, also a Denver-based art and fabrication studio, is building the suspended collar sculpture. Silo Workshop was founded by Conor Hollis and Amorette Lana in 2007. Once the collar is installed, they will return to the animal shelter every couple months to attach the commemorative pet tags to the sculpture.
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