Client: City of Evanston

Location: Evanston, IL, United States

Completion date: 2016

Artwork budget: $25,000

Project Team

Artist

Janet Austin

Public Art Agent

Gay Riseborough

City of Evanston, Public Art Commission

Industry Resource

Gail Gilbert

Cerise Films

Overview

Attached is a mosaic and steel insect whose nest is a story jar extolling the virtues of wasps representing all creatures. Included is a John Muir paraphrase on nature. Viewers are drawn to the bee like creature, bees being championed in today's eco movement. This wasp should be no less important. It is made even lovelier with a baroque pattern of yellow and black glass mosaic.

Goals

The piece is viewed from 360°, allowing visitors to read the poem encircling the "story vase" nest. The surrounding landscape plants hide the base and discourage children from climbing the sculpture. The plants are chosen because they are native and support a healthy biodiverse ecosystem which reiterates the message.

Process

The City of Evanston, public art commission, has collaborated by including landscaping in the location chosen for it's high traffic, pedestrians, bikes and cars.

Additional Information

The prose: I pollinate, I build nests fit for a queen, I consume swarms of parasitic pests. Call me wasp, yellow jacket, hornet, vespa, we coexist. When one tugs at a single thing in nature he finds it attached to the rest of the universe.