Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican
7/15/2008 - 7/10/08
Twenty-seven granite trout that appear to leap from the
pavement will greet visitors to a courtyard in the
new Santa Fe Community Convention Center.
Colette
Hosmer, known for artwork depicting or using
animal parts, like pig tails, cow snouts and marrow bones,
will receive a $100,000 commission for her proposed artwork,
Santa Fe Current.
The Santa Fe City Council
last Wednesday approved a contract for the sculptures,
chosen by a special arts committee and previously endorsed
by council committees. Twenty-four artists or groups
of artists applied for the city-funded project. The two
other finalists for the commission were Roxanne Swentzell
and Alan Houser. Swentzell, a Santa Clara Pueblo sculptor,
won a previous $100,000 commission for her large bas-relief
for the center's lobby. Existing works by Houser, a Chiricahua
Apache sculptor who died in 1994, were offered through
his estate.
Hosmer proposes an arc
of sculptures of the front halves of 27 Rio Grande cutthroat
trout, each 2 feet high, 3.5 feet long and weighing 650
pounds. She proposed using dark gray granite, but said
pink granite also is an option. Each trout will look
like it's jumping out of a stream that Hosmer says symbolizes
Santa Fe — "fluid,
vital and forward moving."
Cutthroat
trout, she wrote, are "an indicator of
a perfectly balanced ecology, as they can only thrive
in the cleanest waters." In fact, the Rio Grande
cutthroat trout, New Mexico's state fish, has been having
some difficulty. It has been designated as a candidate
for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act
as threats mount against the fish and the cold-water
streams it calls home. It has disappeared from about
90 percent of its historic range in the Rio Grande basin
in New Mexico and Colorado. Under an agreement with the
city late last year, the state Department of Game and
Fish put some 1,900 of the native fish in Santa Fe Canyon
reservoirs — which
are closed to the public — as part of an effort
to boost genetically pure populations.
In describing the artwork
she will install in a courtyard on the southeastern portion
of the new center, Hosmer wrote, "Santa
Fe Current is designed to encourage public interaction. This composition
will draw people from the sidewalk into the plaza inviting
visitors to wander among the fish, to intermingle with
the stream. Santa Fe Current reflects the Civic Center's
role as Santa Fe's foremost venue for coming together." Hosmer said
her sculpture will have no sharp edges, and the fish
will be sturdy enough that adults can sit on them, children
can slide down their backs, and no maintenance will be
required. She estimated about half the $100,000 will
go for the granite and production costs.
Artworks will take up about $453,000 of the budget for
the $50 million, 72,000-square-foot center with an underground
parking garage, which is funded by the lodgers tax and
parking revenue.
Hosmer, who is represented
by the William Siegel Gallery, said her piece won't be
ready to install in time for the center's opening later
this summer. "I won't
have it ready by then because I've had to wait ... until
I've had a signed contract," she said last week. "I
plan to install it in March or April, as soon as the
ground thaws again. ... It's too late to do it before
October, before the freeze."
Contact Tom Sharpe at
986-3080
