Hope blossomed at Huntington Mall in West Virginia last week, and Four Rooms closed this week in Frankfurt. It's been quite a month.
Hope Blossoms is a public art installation at Huntington Mall in Barboursville, WV. The installation includes a 25-foot tall paper cherry tree, paper swan ballerina, and paper pond. This is my second year there, after installing Grace's Garden last holiday season. You can visit Hope in center court through the end of May 2013.
For a look at A House With Four Rooms, click for images here and here. For a couple of lovely blog posts, click here for Heather McCaw Kerley's piece, and here for the Torpedo Factory's Jeff Sypeck.
For more on Hope Blossoms click here for a short video, here for a fun radio interview, and here for a short article.
One of my favorite things about this installation is the pond. It's made of cut paper text from Emily Dickinson's poem, Hope is the Thing With Feathers. Over the next six months, the pond will continue to fill with text as visitors toss their written "hopes" on small pieces of blue paper into the pond.
With the holiday season upon us, I'm grateful for the incredible support of family and friends, without whom these projects simply would not have happened: Ian Lowe, Mandy Gordon, Donna & Bill O'Brien, The Engen family (especially Brennah), Mary Cook and Allison Nance of microWave Project, Margi MacDuff (and family), the staff and FAB volunteers of Huntington Mall, Connie Sandusky, Jonathan Cox and Anthony Smith of Marshall University's Sculpture Program, The Huntington Museum of Art, Astrid Haas, Astrid Blasberg, the faculty and staff of Frankfurt-am-Main Applied Sciences University, the Germany-based flower making team led by Emily Ryan and assistants Tania Fiedler, Sophie Frey, Catherine Pilger, Shari Religa, the France-based flower making team of Ginette, Jacques and Hélène Lorblanchet, and Lisa Kokin.
There's more on my plate for January and the New Year...but for now, I'm content to reflect on a very satisfying and productive 2012. Gratitude is on my mind as the year winds down, and the focus for now.
Wishing you hope, peace and joy this holiday season.