Fountain Spire is an outdoor sculpture made for a festival in Okotoks, Alberta called Nooks and Crannies. The festival consists of temporary outdoor public art installations made from recyclable and repurposed materials located around the town.
My proposed installation was a fountain made of repurposed material from my own collection, the Okotoks’ Eco-Center, as well as repurposed rain water which triggers the fountain to run. Located at the Okotoks Rotary Performing Arts Centre (3 Elma Street), this fountain becomes kinetic when rainwater flows from the rooftop into the the fountain’s basin through the eavestrough outlet. Over the course of the month long installation, the fountain will run when the 6 gallon reservoir is full. The pump will shut off the water automatically when it runs too low. In a sense, the fountain is a water sensor that relates directly to the volume of precipitation in the area. This fountain is an experiment in how to create a visible representations of a variable ecosystem.
As part of the directive of the festival, I have reclaimed and repurposed the majority of my materials. The base dish is reclaimed cedar from an old project, laminated and carved to create a 3 foot dish and basin. The spire is created from a lodgepole pine, carved and drilled out to pipe water up the center and out the top. The aluminum-tiled surface was created out of punched pie plates collected from the Okotoks Eco Centre.
Nooks and Crannies Festival runs from July 18th to August 22, 2020.
Lane Shordee 