1. How were you first selected/approached to compose the sculpture for Downtown Phoenix?
I think there were hundreds of artists reviewed for this project, and about half a dozen artist finalists brought in for interview from around the world, including Jaume Plensa from Spain (the artist whose work is in Millenium Park in Chicago), and several from New York including Dennis Oppenheim, etc. I believe I was the youngest among them, and perhaps the only woman (not sure). After the finalist interviews by their committee, I was selected and asked to begin design on the project.
2. How long did it take you to design the project?
More than two years from start to finish
3. Did anybody help you with the creation/design?
I had an incredible team of engineers, lighting designers, architects, landscape architects, without whom I could never have accomplished this.
4. Were you given any certain requirements in terms of the Civic Plaza's "Green Effect"?
It was my idea that the sculpture should not take up space on the ground, as I believe all the other finalists were proposing, but that the artwork be placed up in the air, with the glorious Arizona sky as its backdrop.
5. What made you choose to name your masterpiece after legendary poet Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem, "Her Secret is Patience"?
Adopt the pace of nature... that seemed to explain to me how plants in the desert not only survive but flourish. and then i began to feel it was appropriate for the ambitious for a newly vital downtown Phoenix.
6. What made you first get into art?
It was the thing I most wanted to do- After college, I figured I could always make compromises later, but I should at least try for what I really wanted first. And I just kept going. In college, I was studying the life of Henri Natisse, an impressionist painter who became confined to his bed after he turned seventy, at which point he invented an entirely new way of image-making (hispaper cut outs, like the swimming pool series). I liked the fact that art-making as a career was something that would always be challenging, something where I would always be learning , and you can't get fired or be forced to retire.
7. What did you study at Harvard?
I started out as a History Major, then found something called "Visual and Environmental Studies", where I began making documentary film. I considered journalism as a career and did several internships at newspapers and a television news programs. I took one semester or drawing and one semester of painting and finally decided that the independent work of being a visual artist was what i really wanted to do.
8. What was it like pursuing art in the exotic land of Bali after graduating college?
Ah, that's a long story. I lived in a grass-thatched house on the edge of rice fields that stretched to the ocean. It was an intensive learning experience for me living in a village. I was learning through every pore of my body, from language, customs, gamelan orchestra, visual culture. It was better than any graduate school experience for sure. I lived there, teaching myself to make art, for five years before returning to the U.S.
9. Out of all of the pieces you've done (and there's been a lot) what would you say was your biggest accomplishment and why?
Her secret is patience. It was such an ethereal experience the night of the inauguration standing beneath it, speaking to Phoenix residents about the work, and looking up to see it gently billow in the wind.
Anything else you would like to add...
I cannot thank the impressive team from the City of Phoenix, and the many supporters from Phoenix who came out and invoked their political process. Without them, this sculpture would most surely have been canceled as finances grew tight. It is to them I dedicate the sculpture, the people who have worked to create a sense of place, of beauty, for their city.
When it comes to the Downtown Civic Space Park, artist Janet Echelman’s floating sculpture masterpiece is without a doubt the main attraction.
The sculpture, titled “Her Secret Is Patience”, was designed by Echelman, who is infamous for reshaping urban airspace with monumental public sculptures that tend to respond to and work in synch with environmental forces including water, wind, and sunlight.
“Her Secret Is Patience” stand 100-feet-tall and makes the patter of the Arizona desert winds visible to the human eye. It even has the ability to produce detailed shadow drawings onto the grounds surrounding the sculpture.
Back in 2007 an uproar of controversy almost caused a complete cancellation of the epic art design that now float’s above Downtown Phoenix. Some felt that the “flimsy sculpture” should not cost the city of Phoenix $2.4 million. It was eventually decided that despite the disagreement the sculpture would go up after all.
Some feel that the sculpture resembles a flower, a jellyfish, or even a uterus perhaps. What some may not know is that the title, “Her Secret Is Patience” was in fact derived from a quote from the legendary poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.”
The flexible netting will be launched 38 feet above the ground supported by a framework of steel rings, cables and poles. The structure has the capability of being risen to a maximum height of 100 feet and reach a width of 100 feet at the top. Gorgeous lighting allows the sculpture to be visible as a landmark even at night.
Although the job is all finished now and stands beautifully scraping the Phoenician skies, it was in fact a complicated work of engineering and was even rewarded with the Excellence in Structural Engineering Award from the Arizona Structural Engineers Association.
Residents instantly fell in love with the floating sculpture. After all, what other public landmarks does Phoenix really have? It is not New York City. Phoenix is not currently crawling with art-loving tourists, but perhaps thanks to Echelman, maybe that will change.
Echelman’s next project is for the Richmond Olympic Oval, the official venue for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. The project will cost $1.2 million yet will take the run-off water from the building’s roof and produce a water garden decorated with red curved pedestrian bridges, “water-drawing” aeration fountains, and red and orange, netted “sky lanterns” that respond to the wind.
The artist’s work has been represented all over the world in areas including Madrid, Venice, Bombay, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Kyoto, and New York City.
Echelman is a Harvard graduate. After college she spent 1988-1993 living as an artist on the tropical island of Bali, Indonesia before moving to New York City. She currently resides in Brookline, Massachusetts with her family.
“I am a sculptor who shapes urban space. I prefer the immediacy and challenge of transforming sites that are either unnoticed infrastructure that have faded from public memory, or iconic landmarks that have are so overexposed they become habitual background.”
-Janet Echelman
