Client: Scottsdale Public Arts

Overview

Thunderbird Airfield, Scottsdale Airport, Arizona, USA
“from Land and from Air” – “Sun and Moon”
Hand painted antique glass for the window. Digitally printed enammel laminated safety glass on the walls.
120 square meters of wall cladding and one slim stained glass window at the new Scottsdale Airport in Arizona.

Goals

Designs based on the surrounding Saguaro Desert Landscape are mixed with Native American poetry by Ofelia Zepeda and Natalie Diaz in both Mojave, and Tohono O’odham Languages. The poems talk of the beauty of the landscape and the necessity for precious water, imagery includes the Thunderbird, succulent plants and ancient canal networks built by the Hohokam people.

Process

The images on the walls relate to the Land and the Air, while the adjacent tall narrow stained glass window “Sun and Moon” continues the theme by moving up into the heavens with a red hot sun and two moons. Richard Shelton’s poem “Desert” talks of the beautiful indigenous plants that survive the hostile desert environment and is etched onto the glass surface.