A large spherical glass and metal sculpture attracting attention on Capital Boulevard near Edmonton’s Alberta Legislature is the handiwork of two Foothills artists.
Black Diamond Firebrand Glass Studio creators Tyler Rock and Julia Reimer spent almost six months creating their first large-scale piece of public art, Transect, which incorporates metal and glass with 3D modeling and technographic printing.
The artists were commissioned by The Places, Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the federal government to create a landmark at the site for Canada’s 150th anniversary.
The sculpture was unveiled on Canada Day.
“We are always game for trying something new,” said Reimer. “It’s kind of fun to explore creative ideas in different ways. That’s part of being a creative person and evolving as an artist.”
Reimer and Rock were among 50 Alberta artists who submitted a proposal for the project last fall.
“When I saw the call for entry I started doing research and looking at the space the sculpture was going,” said Reimer. “When you hear all the conflict around the blue ring in Calgary it’s all about location. If you imagine that blue ring being on the edge of the Bow River it would be stunning. I think public art works really well when it suits the space it’s going in.”
The artists were shortlisted a couple of times before Rock and Reimer were chosen in January.
“It was a bit daunting because we had never done anything like that before,” said Reimer. “It’s a bit of a gamble. You are putting a lot of time and money into it and you don’t know if you’re going to get it.”
The artistic duo Rock and Reimer were in charge of managing and designing the project, then worked with engineers, mechanists, welders and stainless steel suppliers.
“We’ve never done anything like that before,” Reimer said.
“We had a working relationship with Goldray Industries before and had heard they could do this. I thought it would be a neat way to capture some of the imagery.”
The idea was to incorporate historical images on glass.
The images were selected from the Glenbow Museum archives and then photoshopped.
Finding images to incorporate into the sculpture was easy, said Reimer.
“Years ago the streets were made of mud and there was no bridge, just a ferry across,” she said. “Those images really struck me. I want there to be reminders to people of all that’s been built and created. It became important to capture those images. We asked ourselves how we could do that.”
Throughout the construction process, Rock and Reimer only saw bits and pieces of their creation at a time.
“The crazy thing is we didn’t see the full metal sculpture until two weeks before it was installed,” Reimer said. “We spent five and a half months working on something we couldn’t really see. It was terrifying. I thought, what if it looks dumb, too tiny or too big.”
When it all came together, Reimer’s butterflies vanished.
“I’m really happy with how it looks,” she said. “Alberta light is so beautiful and you combine glass and stainless steel with Alberta light it’s like a choir singing. It’s heavenly.”
Since Transect was installed, Reimer said she’s never looked back.
“Sometimes as an artist you say, ‘I could have done that a little differently,’” she said. “Sometimes you feel like you can do something more. I look at the piece and go it’s just perfect.”
Rock is also proud of the results. He said one of the most rewarding experiences was working with others.
“It forced us to work with a bunch of other people,” he said. “Working collaboratively with other businesses is a different experience. It’s rich and rewarding. We’ve done big projects in the studio but we’ve never done an outdoor sculpture like this so it was a pretty big deal for us.”
Unlike other projects, Rock and Reimer had to create a digital prototype of the sculpture.
“It had to be very accurately measured and placed,” Rock said. “Seeing the digital version in the early stages and seeing the results at the very end was very fulfilling because it lived up to our expectations.”
As they worked to install the sculpture in late June, Rock got a kick out of the public’s reaction.
“It was the satisfaction of seeing it finally installed and seeing how playful the public was around it and how interactive they were with it when we were installing it,” he said. “They had a genuine curiosity about it. People were taking selfies with it. It was nice to see people interacting with art like that.”
