14 Oct Scrap Iron Fence 2208 S. Halsted Chicago, IL

Scrap Fence, 2208 S. Halsted, 2002
steel, cast iron
83 H x 284 W x 6 in D
Collaboration with Kenneth Morrison

A collaboration with Kenneth Morrison. He originated the concept and sketched a rough layout for the overall project. I designed and fabricated individual panels. The choice of which panels went together was his. It was a little like an enormous steel version of the exquisite corpse game played by the Surrealists… in which players take turns adding to a drawing without seeing the parts drawn by the last player.

This project sparked a lot of new ideas for me— The radiator sections used in the fence were salvaged from the building and the client wanted them included in the fence. We didn’t have a good way to weld steel to cast iron at that time, so all of those sections were attached using stone setting techniques borrow from jewelry or by otherwise weaving the steel through openings in the radiator sections. That was what gave me the idea for later projects that would incorporate stone and mosaic into fence designs.

See part two of this project, which incorporates kinetic elements, here.