I wrote this several years ago when the sculpture was first installed. Soon after ASU opened a  downtown campus and students could be seen relaxing and enjoying the grassy spot below “Her name is patience”. Now, I’ve just learned my great-granddaughter will be attending classes at the ASU Nursing School. I’m sure she will be enjoying the beautiful and unique sculpture too.!

“The Sky is Blooming!”

By

Gerry Niskern

Have you seen it? The sky is blooming in downtown Phoenix. The city workers just installed the floating sculpture, by Janet Echelman, over the new Civic Space that’s North of Van Buren between 1^st Avenue and Central.

“Sky Bloom”, as we’ve grown accustomed to calling the art piece that is 100 feet wide, stands about 100 feet in the air.  It’s official name is “Her secret is patience,” from an Emerson poem.

Turns out the title is appropriate since the installation was delayed a few times. The first attempt to install the 600 pounds of flexible netting was aborted when it was discovered it didn’t fit the two steel rings to which it would be attached. It was sent back for refitting.

Then this morning, the day before Easter, as the crew gathered, heavy rain started. Later the sun came thru and caught the variegated colors of blue as the wind moved and shaped the ever changing sculpture as it was installed by daring young men in buckets on very long booms!

My resident historian and I drove down and watched. Of course, there was some grumbling from my partner on the way. “It will never go over with the public. They better sew an address tag on it.  The  state that it blows to will know where to send it back”

We’ve all heard the numerous complaints from the naysayers. “The city should have just put up a shade screen over the park!” and “It’s going to rot in the sun; won’t last ten years and it will have to be replaced!”

I had heard the same kind of complaining at home when the city announced the Light Rail project.  “They’re just streetcars. We had them before and never should have gotten rid of them”. The grumbling continued. “The sculpture money should have been spent on other things”. Of course, he really knows that the money was not part of the General Fund and was set aside for the Arts and had to be used for that.

Phoenix joins many cities around the world who have commissioned Echelman to create large, fabric sculptures to enhance their public spaces.  Google her, if you haven’t already, and learn about the other cities and see the other iconic pieces she has created.

Light from the sun and synthetic light by night casts line drawings on those underneath and passersby, making them an active part of the piece. And as one young man was heard to pronounce, “At least it’s not another statue of a dead guy”.

No matter where you live in the valley, come to downtown Phoenix and see our “sky in bloom”.

Take the streetcar.