RAE DOUGLASS

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Lumanillo

An ocotillo transformed into a shimmering apparition to be as vivid in the day as the night.  Posing in the desert landscape its form looks at once familiar, but energized with the power of light, it becomes a cheerful and welcoming accent.  This Sculpture takes the traditional desert form of the Ocotillo made out of steel rods that are partially coated with a diffraction film.  The film is patterned on the rods to abstract the same pattern of thorn and leaf on the ocotillo branch.  The rods are also bent at various spots like its desert cousin.  The film is oriented to produce a color effect that I discovered a few years ago that appears to emanate from the solid center of the steel rod.  The display in direct sunlight is very vibrant, and gives an elegant color distribution along the length of the rod.  At night the branches will glow from a concealed spotlight at the base.

Otis Feather Cloud

A mobile that illuminates the atrium of the Otis Elevator Company world headquarters building in Farmington, CT.  The mobile is monumental in keeping with the 4 story atrium it is housed in.

Theme Structures for the Riverwalk festival marketplace, New Orleans, LA

Identity and theme structures created for the Rouse Riverwalk Festival Marketplace along the Mississippi River in Downtown New Orleans.  The structures were made out of standardized scaffolding parts, and custom fabricated panels for an economical way to create monumental sculpture and signage.  The structures were installed in 1986, were not damaged by hurricane Katrina, and are still standing.

Tucson Gateway

The Tucson Gateway was created in collaboration with local Tucson Architects Burns and Wald-Hopkins, and artist Moira Geoffrion. The project is a bridge spanning a freeway that is supported by two tilted parabolic arches. The arches are held aloft by a series of suspension cables project out at oblique angles along either side of the freeway. Additional cables suspend the bridge under the arches. All of the cables are sheathed in an optical coating that transforms them into glowing optical filaments.