Important County Ink - CODAworx

Important County Ink

Submitted by Jay Johnson

Client: San Diego County Operations Center

Location: San Diego, CA, United States

Completion date: 2012

Artwork budget: $10,000

Project Team

Artist

Jay S. Johnson

Other

RJC Architects

Other

Lowe Enterprises Real Estate Group

Architect

Jeff Redlitz

County of San Diego

Art Consultant

Gail M. Goldman Associates

Overview

200 sq. ft. wall assemblage consisting found objects in case and on wall. UV ink on Plex and Dibond panels, CNC cut PVC. A collection of signatures and pen work reproduced from documents pertaining to county business, actual writing tools and ephemera.

Goals

This is one of 24 similar sized displays we created for the new San Diego County Operations Center campus during the 3 year period of its construction. Rather than utilizing standard department logos and directionals typically found on elevator lobby walls, the county asked us to create displays that would enhance visitor and employee areas in informative and unexpected ways. Our search for artifacts in the previous departmental buildings slated to be demolished resulted in a new archive of county history. What we found range from "treasures" such as President Lincoln's signature unknown on a county doc. before, to just esthetically interesting things found in laboratories, old desk drawers and stashed behind file cabinets.
Most of the items are analog casualties of the digital age. The concept for this display looks back to a time when hand drawn ink was still the norm.

Process

After our team collected, sorted and researched the objects I would arrange and design wall pieces for the various locations stipulated by project managers. An art committee made up of county officials, architect, project developer and art consultant then reviewed the design proposals and provided feed back.