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11/05/2009
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Staff photo by David Leamingfrom the Kennebec Journal
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from the Morning Sentinel
The creation, designed and fabricated by sculptor Christopher Fennell, was unveiled to the public Wednesday in front of the Education Center on High Street. For most of the past eight weeks, the artist worked into the night under a shroud of tarpaulins that covered wooden staging.
Fennell, known nationally for his colossal creations constructed from reclaimed and sustainable materials, used about 1,000 rusted and dull lawn mower blades to assemble his metal monolith. The parts came from a national lawn and garden tractor company and were welded onto a graceful steel arch that seems to grow from its concrete base.
The sculpture, "Lawnmower Leaves," is Fennell's first Maine work. It was erected in front of UMF's "greenest" building that has been certified by the U.S. Green Building Council.
UMF President Theodora Kalikow on Wednesday said Fennell's proposal was selected because of his interest in designing something that related to the Education Center's "green" character that stresses environmental sustainability, recycling, and renewable energy.
UMF senior Elizabeth Gilley of Harpswell, an education major who has watched the sculpture take shape as she has gone to classes, said she likes the concept of having a work of art depicting green leaves in front of the campus' greenest building.
"I had wondered what the design would be and I like what he was doing. But I would have liked it better if he hadn't painted the blades," she said.
The sculpture was commissioned in accordance with Maine's Percent for Art Act, enacted by the Legislature in 1979 to provide funds for the acquisition of public art works using one percent of the cost of all newly constructed or renovated state-funded buildings. The program is run by the Maine Arts Commission.
The total budget for the project was about $41,500, according to UMF spokeswoman April Mulherin. One percent of the cost of the sculpture was included in the cost of the new Education Building and another one percent was from the renovation project in Ricker Hall.
Private donations covered the cost of site preparation; no public funds were used.
Fennell's work is inspired by materials cast out by society and he has been making architectural skeletons from discarded materials since 2000. His first sculpture -- the barn "wave" -- was built at the University of Georgia from the boards of an old dismantled barn.
According to Fennell, he wanted to take an unsustainable and graceless activity -- mowing grass -- and make a statement on how "repurposed" mower blades could be used in an environmentally-friendly way to create a thing of beauty.
"Sculpture is a visual language," Fennell said in a statement. "Using recycled materials is not only a powerful image about our choices but also connects the audience to the artwork through their own personal experiences with those materials."
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