Following last month’s damage to the Sky Sweeps public art installation in South Aberdeen, officials are working to determine the feasibility of redesigning and repairing the broken sculpture.
The vertical post of the center “sweep” broke due to high wind, according to a damage report released by the state’s Art in Public Places Program. The break did not cause any further damage.
The three Sky Sweeps sculptures, which most people refer to simply as “the oars,” are located east of the Chehalis River Bridge on the north side of Highway 101. Workers will remove the remaining vertical pieces from the two other sculptures sometime between Monday and Wednesday, said Janae Huber, collections manager for the Art in Public Places Program.
Fabrication Specialties, the company that built and installed the pieces, assessed the damage and removed the stray post in late January, the report says. The next step is to determine how feasible redesigning or repairing the artwork will be.
Artists Peter and Sue Richards designed the sculptures after the state commissioned them in 2002. It was completed in 2004. Funding for the art comes from half of a percent of the state’s cost for the construction of a public building. In the case of the Sky Sweeps project, the funding was a portion of the allocation from the construction of the Stafford Creek Corrections Center.
Though the fund also helps pay for conservation of the artwork, Huber said that money typically goes to cleaning or repainting it.
“One of the things with artwork is that every single thing created is a unique thing,” she said. “It is unlikely that our funding is equal to the task of rebuilding these.”
Parks and Recreation Director Karl Harris added that the extent of the repair remains a question as well.
Intellectual property rights, Harris said, will also keep any changes from being made to the presentation of the sculpture. Because of this, the city won’t be seeking public comment before moving forward.
“The artist owns the rights to the art, and so after it’s been commissioned, we can’t move it or do anything to it without their permission,” he said, adding the state can only remove the art if it’s damaged. “But as far as changing it or anything like that, they have to get permission from the artist.”
The timeline moving forward, Huber said, remains unclear, but the department’s report says officials hope to have a decision made before summer.
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