After five years of fundraising and planning, the Arc of Dreams is going up over the Big Sioux River just upstream from our largest city’s namesake falls.
But for this month, at least, call it Arc of Dreams 0.5:
The first half of Dale Lamphere‘s latest great public installation went up Saturday; the second half gets hauled across the state from Lamphere’s Black Hills studio later this month. So for June, Big Sioux strollers and rollers will have the pleasure of determining whether they are sculpture-half-full or sculpture-half-empty people.
These guys are like, oh, shoot, this half was supposed to go on the other side…. pic.twitter.com/XXNBCjtixZ
— CAHeidelberger (@coralhei) June 1, 2019
Senator Reynold Nesiba (D-15/Sioux Falls) finds brilliant completion in the half-finished artwork just a mile from his freshly debachelorized pad:
She completes my Arc of Dreams. pic.twitter.com/jiCYbOpaCs
— Reynold Nesiba (@ReynoldNesiba) June 3, 2019
Now that the west bank footings have set, pranksters should any day now be hanging giant inflatable walleye off Arc of Dreams 0.5. But let’s hurry up and erect the east bank span so we can install that kayak slingshot….
I guess, to some, this is modern progress, but to me, having grown up in S.F., it is steel and concrete encroaching on an area of natural beauty. I used to swim at the falls and use the rock formations as diving boards and water slides. Now they have cut a straight channel thru the rock draining the deep pool, added laser lights and erected a modern “replica” shack over the diversion channel, added a restaurant and observation tower… Now we get an arch and some new condos. Maybe, soon, we can color the water like they do the Chicago river. Sorry, it doesn’t impress this old f*rt! ;-)
Loren, I’m not sure how much of what you and I grew up with was that natural, though. I grew up in the 50s and 60s. The river had lots of changes upstream before and during my childhood. I, too, remember going to the falls and jumping into the polluted water, even though parents told us not to. Some things haven’t changed.
As far as the Arc of Dreams, I think it is best left unfinished, as a 0.5, assuming it could be made stable that way. I’m not sure about others, but I seem to wake up before dreams conclude and my dreams for life were mostly incomplete. Isn’t that more like life on the Plains?
Pretty Cool … (It’d be tough to be an artist in “The Little State That Won’t”. Complain, complain, complain.)
Yeah, I hope they got the anchors figured out.
So I take it that’s his wife? Doesn’t she have a name? Or is she just a random cyclist who posed for Nesiba?
As for the sculpture, I like most of Lamphere’s work, so I imagine this one will be good too.
Speaking of… I’m in the process of fulfilling a request to display some of my portraits in the lobby of the building I live in. It’s for SALE folks! 😁😁
Debbo’s art pieces are excellent. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The self portraiture especially.
I’m a huge fan of Lamphere‘s artwork. This is yet another genius piece. It leaves plenty for interpretation; the implication that there are no bridges to the completion of a dream, and you will have some work to do to get there (JUMP!).
You know people are going to climb that thing. Hope those anchors are strong.
I do like the idea of a giant inflatable fish hanging from it and a slingshot for kayaker’s I think might be needed. Shoot them back up stream before they hit the fall’s!
You’d assume the artist knows snow loading and how much weight will pile into and above that design in relation to the tensile strength of the construction material and the telescoping design. I hear y’all still get blizzards up there.
Our Debbo is an award winning artist and handy with a Dremel and ham bone. Now get yer minds out of the gutter.
Donald and John both grasp Lamphere’s intent: even finished, the sculpture will leave a gap (a “synapse“, Lamphere’s website calls it) that represents the unrealized nature of dreams, the potentiality, the part that we must fill in with our imagination and energy.
Reynold grasped that, too, with his photo. As Reynold demonstrates and Donald suggests, the Arc may leave more to our imaginations in its half-installation than it will in full installation.
As for climbers, I wonder if Lamphere wove some electrical cables into that structure….
Climbers? Is there a state, county, or city statute concerning desecration and/or vandalism of public art installations? And, how did the Poet’s Table story turn out? Anyone know?
Ms. Geelsdottir, you do realize that Mr. Senator Nesiba is a Democrat Senator from District Sioux Falls and has had some legal issues regarding women in the past, don’t you? Why would you call that young fellow out on this picture issue?
That Sen. Nesiba is on the proper side of All the issues, huh goat cheese? I’d move to Soo Foo just to vote for him. 👍🏻
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynold_Nesiba
I wish the business community in Sioux Falls was as interested in raising wages as they are in raising self-glorifying Arcs.
Unlike the Arch in St. Louis, which represents a gateway, the gap between the two Arcs speaks to what is lacking in Sioux Falls in turns of wages and a gateway to a better life for most Sioux Fallsians.
One could also say, that the two Arcs speak of the “Tale of Two Cities,” and the fact that only one of the Arcs is standing right now, speaks to a priority that serves some, but not the many.
Colorado has a one percent law. Any new state government building or renovation to same triggers a 1% of the cost of the project be spent on public art. We have some beautiful and diverse pieces. (The airport was a hundreds of millions of dollars project with superb art, inside and out).
*Maybe a statue commemorating stubborn and contrary Volga German immigrants might be food for discussion? Many of their descendants do seem to value art, in a unique way.
https://coloradocreativeindustries.org/opportunities/public-art/
Public art should prompt thoughtful and competing interpretations as it speaks to all members of the community. Perhaps the Arc of Dreams will be as fraught in interpretation as Mount Rushmore.