Shooting in Chattanooga
On a bright January morning in downtown Chattanooga, some 200 citizens and more than two dozen public officials gather on a narrow tract of land that long ago dissolved into industrial blight. But on this day, the community is set to dedicate a brand new public art installation by international sculptor Thomas Sayre.
“Main Terrain” is the central feature of what the city is now proudly billing as an “urban art and fitness park.” Sayre’s nine sculptural elements stretch the length of a city block, forming a visual arc that was inspired by Chattanooga’s historic Walnut Street bridge. Built in 1890, it became the first non-military highway bridge built across the Tennessee River, and is now a haven for pedestrian sightseers, cyclists, skaters, and runners. In fact, Sayre, a wiry athlete in his early 60s, was in the midst of a brisk stroll on the Walnut Bridge when the call came from town officials saying he’d been selected from a large pool of world-class artists to design the art park.
Three of the bridge-like elements in Sayre’s new installation are set 25 feet above ground, centered on pedestals fashioned by a local concrete firm. The iron sections will rotate if passersby step across the grass to apply some serious muscle to a ship-sized wheel jutting from the concrete pilings. This is art that actually burns calories.
An oval track encircles the grassy park and is already in use this morning by fitness enthusiasts and young mothers pushing strollers, waiting for the ceremonies to begin. By turns they crane their necks to study the welded spans against the azure sky and then they drop their eyes to read ancient and contemporary lines of Japanese haiku that Sayre has inlaid in terrazzo every 50 meters along the walk. Five adult fitness stations are also set around the oval–chin up bars, swinging rings, a climbing wall, and parallel bars, all made by PlayCore, a Chattanooga-based company known for its innovative recreational designs.
As if it were not enough that this repurposed land links a city icon with seductive opportunities for exercise, green space, and nimble lines of poetry, the whole project also functions as a storm water management system. A complex network of drains engineered by the city will provide supplemental irrigation to the landscapers’ on-site plantings of ornamental grass, shrubs, and trees, while also holding back some 1.5 million gallons of rainwater from entering Chattanooga’s sewer system each year.
Welcome to the world of Thomas Sayre, whose work blends physics and aesthetics, speaks to past and future, marries the natural and manmade, and ultimately transforms the view and the viewer by reframing discreet spaces.
Posted at 3:16pm.
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