


Client: Johnson County Library at Lenexa City Center, Kansas
Location: Lenexa, KS, United States
Completion date: 2019
Artwork budget: $205,000
Project Team
Artist
Stephen T. Johnson
President and Managing Director
Michael Mayer
Franz Mayer of Munich, Inc.
Director USA/CAN
Erica Behrens
Franz Mayer of Munich, Inc.
Project Manager
Ari Metz
Franz Mayer of Munich, Inc.
Overview
Interconnections, a triptych of mosaic murals, each one measuring 23.5 feet tall by 5.5 feet wide and created for the Johnson County Library at Lenexa City Center, Lenexa, Kansas, celebrates the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet through a profusion of typographic fonts, both uppercase and lowercase, intermixed with images from the artists books — Alphabet City, Alphabet School, and A is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet. This artwork was made possible by a 1% grant for public art by the Johnson County Public Art Commission and the Public Building Commission of Johnson County.
Goals
Johnson says: "The goal of Interconnections is to inspire visitors to the library to view our world in a fresh and playful way, and in so doing, discover for themselves juxtapositions of scale, color harmonies, rhythms in surface textures, and joy in what may seem unremarkable or ordinary, by transcending the mundane and unearthing its hidden beauty."
Process
Franz Mayer of Munich worked directly with the artist, getting to know his working methods and visual language, to achieve a dazzling translation of his collage-like imagery. Artisans employed irregularly cut glass cake and gems combined with Italian and Mexican smalti to make a highly charged surface that delights the eye and animates it's architectural setting.