Client: City of Palm Springs

Overview

THE PILLARS OF PALM SPRINGS

The City of Palm Springs Public Arts Commission has awarded six new permanent sculptures located on the median along East Tahquitz Canyon Way. Each sculpture represents a fundamental value of the Palm Springs community.
(1) Creativity, (2) Equality, (3) Serenity, (4) Diversity, (5) Civility, and (6) Community

Cadillactus represents (1) Creativity

Goals

The aim was to encapsulate the essence of Palm Springs within a public art sculpture that illustrate one of the equities that represent the fundamentals of PS.

To approach this task, I pondered: what if there were an imaginary plant indigenous to Palm Springs, one that thrives exclusively in its unique environment? How might such a plant appear, and what name would it bear? The natural conclusion emerged as "Cadillactus," a fusion of a 1959 Cadillac and a cactus.

Palm Springs is renowned for its appreciation of mid-century modern aesthetics across furniture, architecture, and automobiles. Given my familiarity with automotive finishes from regular studio practice, I opted to incorporate car design into my sculpture. I aimed to merge the industrial design of a car with the organic unpredictability of nature, resulting in a unique hybrid creation.
The taillights serve as symbolic representations of cactus flowers or fruits, which light up at night.