Client: Graceworks Lutheran Services

Overview

The Graceworks’ CEO and President Willis Serr, team and artist Stephen Canneto wanted create a site specific that connected residents, staff and visitors to the spirituality of Graceworks and the community it serves. Waters of Creation is inspired by the historic, cultural and religious uses of the scallop shell and water.

Goals

In designing the building the client and architects intentionally created a space for an inspirational art work. Waters of Creation is inspired by the historic, cultural and religious uses of the scallop shell and water. Composed of bronze, cast and float glass, dichroic film and stone. Fabricated bronze ribs cradle wedges of hand cast glass to create the shell. Stacked glass, with nibbled edges and illuminated from behind creates the water falls. The nibbled edges of the glass sparkle like light dancing on water. Limestone from northern and central Ohio frame the sculpture and form the base. To honor and recognize the archaeological history the wing walls have been sandblasted to expose and accentuate its fossils.

Process

The collaboration brought together traditional arts and crafts methods of model making, glass casting, bronze fabrication and stone cutting with 3 D imaging, CAD based production and LED lighting design to illuminate the work’s glass and dichroic materials.

Additional Information

Although small in scale, digitizing the small scale model, casting the glass at Glasmalerie Peters German Studios, fabricating the bronze and integrating the dichroic laminate offered challenges that enabled the team to grow develop new skills