kinetic Archives - Water Shapes

Kinetic Wonder

Way back in my Pool Spa News editor days - I want to say circa 1990, but I may be off by a year or two - we ran a piece on a waterfeature built by Mike Stachel of Mt. Lake Pool & Patio (Doylestown. Pa.) to meet the needs of the Philadelphia Zoo's relentlessly cute capybaras. I've forgotten all of the details of the article (which, as a small twist of fate would have it, was written by future WaterShapes editor Eric Herman) other than the relentless cuteness of the creatures for whom the watershape was built, but enough of the memory of the project lingered that I made a point of stopping by the zoo while visiting the city ten or twelve years later to see how the critters were getting on. I also wanted to see whether they were as darned cute in person as they had been in Mike's photographs. I wasn't prepared in any way for the fact that they were actually too large to be considered cute. They were taller and longer and more girthsome than the photos I'd seen had led me to believe. I couldn't help thinking of them as supersized squirrels with bigger, sharper teeth and voracious appetites to match. The horror . . . Fortunately, there was much else to see at the zoo. Before I was anywhere near the capybara enclosure, in fact, I strolled up to and past the Impala Fountain and knew I'd come back for a longer look once I'd paid my respects to my rodent friends and Mike Stachel's handiwork. The Impala Fountain belongs to a class of waterfeatures for which I have something of a weakness - that is, fountains that feature wild animals interacting with water. I love the horses running up the steps at the entrance of Denver's Mile-High Stadium, for example, and I'm truly smitten by the mustangs that race across the stream in williams square irving, The difference in this case is that the impalas (executed between 1950 and 1963 by Philadelphia sculptor Henry Mitchell, are distinctly abstract - basically skeletonized versions of a dozen of these great and amazing leapers set in an arc above fountain jets, doubtless in flight from one sort of predator or another. To me, this is an ideal combination of sculpture and water where the kinetic nature of the fountain jets lends a direct sense of movement to the static sculptural elements. It's simply drop-dead gorgeous - and well worth a visit the next time you visit the Philadelphia Zoo to see Mike Stachel's fearsome capybaras.

The works of sculptor David Curt Morris often combine moving water with simple yet striking shapes in glass or metal. His meticulous compositions speak to observers by juxtaposing the kinetic potential of water against static structures – perhaps something as simple as water flowing over glass surfaces – to exploit what he calls the ‘colors’ of water in motion in a philosophy and a design approach that cuts to the essence of what watershaping is all about.

Water in Sculpture

I'm particularly interested in the behavior of water. To me as a sculptor, differing water flows and their textures are like "colors" to a painter: I find a color that holds meaning for me and then look for a structural form that can present it. To this extent, my artistic medium is the behavior of water and the means to make it behave. The sculpture in this case is water combined with a structure in steel, stone and equipment. The work is abstract: abstractions of feelings related to the movement of people, animals, fish and the flows of water in streams, rivers, rain - even the flow of numbers. As a result, I need metaphors and feelings to drive my creative expressions, then use water and other sculptural elements in much the same way a choreographer might use line and gesture to express a feeling or a composer will use chord changes and musical phrasing. My hope is that, in creating forms that are meaningful to me, other

On a busy corner in downtown Palm Springs, Calif., stands an unusual sculpture that artfully moves water through the hot desert air. The work of New York sculptor David Curt Morris, ‘The Rainmaker’ was commissioned by community leaders who hoped the fountain would become a landmark celebrating the life-giving power of water in the driest of climates while providing passersby with a place to cool off, relax and play.

Spirited Waters

In 1997, the City of Palm Springs Arts Commission held a national competition for a sculpture to be placed in a prominent public space, the Frances Stevens Park. I was intrigued by the site's high visibility - and by the fact that the California city wanted a sculpture that used water in a desert setting. Working from my studio on the East Coast, I put together an initial proposal that included a number of ideas - provocative to me, but not yet fine-tuned. It wasn't until I actually visited the site in Round Two of the selection process that I knew just how perfect a setting was being offered - a wide-open space in the center of town, ringed by tall palm trees and low-lying buildings with the stunning

For more than two decades, California artist Rafe Affleck has been combining the crisp rigidity of stainless steel with the shimmering reflectivity of flowing water to create a substantial and distinctive body of work. His sculptures, in which liquid is much, much more than a mere accent to metal, grace dozens of commercial, public and private spaces, in every case making bold statements that puzzle, delight, sooth or inspire those who pass by.

Liquid Mettle

From the beginning of my career as a sculptor, I've mostly given myself over to two simple elements - metal and water - and have tried to develop approaches that turn one into an extension of the other. I like the sense that a sheet of flowing water completes the simple stainless steel shapes I create. I also like to play with illusion by creating the impression that the water appears to come from nowhere. And I like getting involved in the hydraulics of laminar flow by making the water emerge from steel as a smooth, cohesive sheet. In a sense, I draw constant inspiration from