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Gallery:
Date Posted:
View of the mosaic column adjacent to the bench, 2010.
Location:
6601 N. Western Ave.
Chicago, IL 60645
Location Notes:
Field house exterior
Located Within:
Warren (Laurence) Park
Artist:
Lynn Takata
Installed:
1987
Features:
Outdoor, Sculpture
Description
Artist Lynn Takata worked closely with children and adults from the Rogers Park community to design and create this sculptural bench and mosaic column entitled the Circle of Nature. Community members even helped construct the sculpture by building the steel armature and applying mortar to the ferro-concrete structures.
The free form sculptural bench and adjacent column are enlivened with mosaics depicting plants and flowers. Poetry and mosaic workshops were held at the park as part of the design process. A local eight year old boy, Philip Dewald, wrote the poem, “Flowers talk in quiet ways,” which was then created in mosaic on the column.
Lynn Takata produced another sculptural bench in Chicago’s Loyola Park, which is entitled Windform. Over the years, she has continued to make participatory artworks in cast and fused glass, concrete, mosaic, and ceramic for zoos, parks, and schools including a fairly recent mosaic of a stone, glass and tile for the City of Portland, Oregon.