By David Slone
Times-Union
WARSAW — Many hands played a part in creating the newest art piece in Warsaw, down at Central Park.
Friday afternoon, the piece, titled “Reflection,” was unveiled during a ceremony and generated “oohs,” “ahhs” and “wows” as the crowd took it in for the first time.
(See more photos by David Slone below)
In comments before the tarp was taken off the sculpture, Suzie Light, Warsaw Public Arts Commission (WPAC), thanked the Warsaw Parks and Recreation Department board and staff.
“They have been absolute champs in helping the Warsaw Public Arts Commission install art — not only here, but at Kerr Park and at Bixler Park and more to come – art in the park,” she said.
The project was part of WPAC’s three-prong approach for 2023-24 public art work.
“We installed several of the Milt Holmgrain statues, sculptures and they got refurbished and reinstalled. We did a national call to artists and got about 20 responses. Luckily, (artist) Gail Christofferson knew exactly what we wanted to do when we wanted to engage the community in making art. And, boy, did they respond,” Light said.
She said they were in five different locations, including the YMCA, Cardinal Services’ Redbird Art Studio and Third Fridays.
“Their job was to take a little piece of glass and put it on mosaic panel,” Light said, recalling how participants thought it was very “cool.”
The third thing the WPAC did this year was to launch Art Works. “You’ll be able to see Art Works on the Facebook page, as well as Instagram and watch for billboards and a lot of social media coverage, covering Art Works in Kosciusko County,” she stated.
To former Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer, Light thanked him for first starting the WPAC and then having the WPAC members go to the Indiana Arts Commission workshop called Creative Convergence.
“Warsaw was chosen as one of five communities to go through this process called Creative Convergence. And at that workshop, we learned things – I learned things,” she said. “When I think of art, I think of sculptures and paintings, and what we learned was that creatives exist in our community when it comes to soap making, jewelry making, craft brewery, culinary arts, a wide range of wonderful arts, and we’re celebrating that with the Art Works campaign.”
As a result of attending the workshop, the city received a $10,000 grant “to help us get this stuff did! And we are glad this is done. It’s been a labor of love I think for all of us,” Light said.
City Involvement
Parks Superintendent Larry Plummer said in 2002 the first Milt Holmgrain statue was put in Central Park. Since then, “Radiance” was installed at the end of Buffalo Street, “The Joker” was put along the Center Lake Trail, “The Wing Totem” was put at Krebs Trailhead Park and then the “Primary Trio” at Kerr Park.
“And now we are incredibly blessed to welcome ‘Reflection,’” Plummer said. “‘Reflection’ holds a significant place for me, my staff and the community because we were all able to be a part of this creation.”
He said “Reflection” represents a “collaborative spirit that defines us and the value we put on art as a community. As we continue to develop and preserve our parks, let us remember the power of art to enrich these spaces, making them not just places to visit, but places to truly experience and cherish.”
Christofferson thanked a number of people, saying, “I just think it’s really important for you all to know that my art practice is not a ‘me,’ it’s this broad community that took part, but also I really rely on my team, my spouse. It does take a team to make something like this, and I appreciate that your community was so enthusiastic about taking part, and I guarantee that you will have people, for years to come, that come through here and say, ‘I did that little blue part.’”
Thallemer spoke on the history and formation of the WPAC, beginning with his former assistant Michelle Bormet organizing the Seward Johnson statues downtown.
“The arts community came out in droves with financial support and anything else we needed to pull that off. We actually ended up doing it twice. But I told Michelle we need to form an arts commission because people in this community are dying for art. They want art in our community,” he said.
Along with art giving a community walkability, Thallemer said, “Art gives a community a chance to express themselves.” With the diverse community that’s in Warsaw, he said it’s important “that we allow art to show that diversity of our community. And that to me is the most important thing as we move forward.”
The Artist
In an interview before the ceremony, Christofferson described herself as a mosaic artist.
“My medium is mosaic glass, so whether I’m doing a mural or a sculpture, an outdoor, indoor mural, whatever I’m doing, I’m always going to use glass as my medium. That is what I do,” she said.
She got into glass after taking a stained glass class and fell in love with the tactical quality of glass.
“It’s got all this variation and different textures, and I fell in love with it. So I started by making everyone I knew a piece of stained glass as a hobby. And then, I’m a graphic artist by trade, and I decided, ‘You know what? This is what I want to do.’ So I transitioned over the course of about 10 years to doing glass full time and I don’t do graphics anymore. I just get to do glass as my job,” Christofferson explained.
From Ohio, she’s done her art from Oregon to the East Coast and everywhere in between. She has murals and installations all over the country. Corporations, nonprofits, schools and libraries have hired her to create art for their facilities.
When the WPAC put out a call for entry, Christofferson applied.
“They put out a call that they wanted something in their community that involved the community. So, I do a lot of community-based mosaics because everyone can put a few little pieces in. And so that’s what appealed to them (WPAC) and I proposed this sculpture,” she recalled.
Christofferson provided the vision and design for the piece, as well as provided the colors and glass ready to go. The community members got to put pieces in.
“It’s got an angular structure so we made it all about triangles and angles, and so, basically, it’s an abstract, but it’s about the fact that you can go into the sculpture and look up. You’re immersed in the sculpture,” she said. “Instead of just looking at the sculpture from one viewpoint, you’re going to be under the glass.”
After the community did their portion, Christofferson took it back to the studio to grout it and other finish work.
“I did the side panels. The community only did the top,” she said.
The total sculpture is 10-12 feet tall. Craig Hamilton is the designer of the structure and also does the installation for Christofferson.
“I do the glass work, he does the architectural work, and we’re a really good team. On a project like this, we’re a team,” she said.
Hamilton said the piece started out as a little sketch that was like a tetrahedron (triangular pyramid).
“We were trying to create a little space, like a little pavilion, inside that. But we wanted water to shed off the top, so I was like we could skew it a little bit and kind of give it this more dynamic lean a little bit and not just have it be the same triangle from each side,” he said. Christofferson liked that better, but Hamilton knew it was going to be a lot harder to build because every angle was going to be a little different.
“We committed to it, and it became a design-build process in that we couldn’t totally plan it out, we kind of had to do it on the fly in my yard on my property,” Hamilton said.
Christofferson said the sculpture is called “Reflection” because of several reasons.
“The glass reflects down onto the cement when the sun is shining through. Plus, you can go into it and spend a minute maybe reflecting on your day because it’s a really meditative space, if you will. So it’s got a couple of reasons that it’s called Reflection. It’s going to reflect that glass, but it’s a chance to maybe reflect on your day when you enter into it,” she said.
Girl Scouts
Before the unveiling of “Reflection,” Girl Scouts from Troop 50568 were creating their own colorful artwork with chalk on the nearby sidewalk. The Troop is made up of girls from the areas of Warsaw, Pierceton, South Whitley and North Manchester, according to Girl Scout Leader Alicia Mediano.
“It’s a mosaic part of art, a different style than what’s going to be displayed today. So this is the girls expressing their art in sidewalk chalk,” she said.
Sherri Johnson, who is a member of the WPAC, also is involved in Girl Scouting.
“As it got closer to the installation of our sculpture, ‘Reflection,’ it came up at one of our (WPAC) meetings on how we could get some younger kids involved,” she said. Initially, they thought about the local schools, but logistically that didn’t work out. Johnson came up with the idea of the Girl Scouts because of her involvement in that.
