See Darin Wacs’ Newest Sculpture This Weekend in Palo Alto
Author:Michelle KonstantinovskyIf you’re looking for a weekend plan that doesn’t involve goblins and ghouls, you’re in luck: the Palo Alto Art Center’s 45th Anniversary Celebration is still going strong, and Saturday promises to be a big day in the year-long festivities.
Darin Wacs, an internationally renowned sculpture designer and Bay Area icon (she created the signs for the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo as well as the Children’s Library) is unveiling her most recent piece, a brand new public installation for the Art Center and Rinconada Library.
The monumental steel sign will certainly turn heads: it’s 3,300 pounds and will be placed on the major intersection of Newell and Embarcadero. The piece took Wacs nine weeks to complete through a painstaking process of laser-cutting, welding, and bending, and the finished product is meant to pay homage to the Art Center itself.
“My focus is creating works that emphasize the importance of art and placemaking,” Wacs says. “I hope to capture the Art Center and Rinconda Library’s mission and all that it gives to Palo Alto. in this installation. It’s important to reflect on the achievements that the Art Center and Library have already brought to the community as well as all it will be giving in the future.”
To commemorate the new addition, the Art Center will also be displaying a variety of Wacs’ contemporary pieces in the lobby over the next month.
The sign dedication will take place from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 29. For more information, visit http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/csd/artcenter/default.asp.
