Rainforest by Fritzgerald

About the Artist

James Fitzgerald was born in 1910 and died in 1973. He was born in Seattle
Washington. James was popular in the Pacific Northwest and was director of the
Spokane Art Center. Fitzgerald painted, sculpted and taught. He taught at Kansas
City Art Institute. His vision was that of the temperate Olympic rainforests. He is
sometimes known as one of the pre-eminent artists in the PNW. James worked on
many projects including some work for the Treasury Relief Art Project which was
a project to create visual art for federal buildings in the depression era. James’s
sculpture is a visual echo of sights so often seen in the PNW. The downed trees,
the dead undergrowth that will be recycled into new life. James intention could
be to make permanent such a fleeting yet common sight as the decaying downed
tree. The tree drips with the waters that slowly erode trees like itself in the forest
yet the sculpture will stand for longer than any of its wooden rotted counterparts.

Initial Reactions

 

I’ve always seen this sculpture in pictures (mainly from browsing through
the campus’s Sculpture catalog, but I’ve never actually known where it was
located. I was thinking of somewhere around North campus, tucked away,
hidden behind a building I wasn’t familiar with. But I found out through this
assignment that it is in fact in front of the Wade King Student Recreation
Center. It was a bit puzzling to me, but I think that was due to the picture in
the Sculpture catalog being taken when there was no track to the side of
the rec center. I think this is one of the coolest sculptures on campus
because it’s dynamic. The water flows down it and all around the metal
pieces, giving life to the sculpture. Other sculptures on campus, while
beautiful, are static, unchanging. I don’t consider that a bad thing, it’s just
that personally I wouldn’t spend more than 10 minutes looking at those
other ones. With this sculpture, I could spend all day staring at the way it
interacts with the water, it’s an oddly calming feeling.
I found out that this sculpture was built back in the 1960s. This was
surprising, as the Wade King Rec center is fairly modern looking to me.
After doing further research, I found out that this was one of Western
Washington University’s first sculptures. It must have been standing here in
the middle of a field, before the rec center was built. I think it must have
been beautiful like that, standing in the middle of nothing. I don’t think the
rec center being built next to it ruined anything, it’s a nice addition to the
building and provides something interesting to look at while you’re passing
by it to work out.
I assume this was built with steel or some type of metal. What’s
interesting is the way it’s curved and bent to resemble plants. That makes
sense, since the title of the piece is called “Rainforest”. The artist chose a
fitting name. The water is supposed to resemble rain, and the metal, plants.
It’s an obvious connection, but that’s because the piece is executed in a
really great way. Something like this doesn’t feel like it’s from the 1960s,
rather, it feels modern and innovative.
Being a rainy day, my first reaction of the rainforest was a dull gray skeletal spire
tearing the sky. As I got closer its surroundings, the little greenery surrounding it
encapsulated the view and made it seem like a rotten log straight out of the
rainforest. As I got closer still I saw the rest of the sculptures and the scene makes
sense. Protrusions that seemed like mushrooms gathered water and dripped on
lower ones and a downed tree gathered water in the ripples of its bark. I almost
thought it might be prettier when it was actually raining instead of it being just a
weird oxidized metal fountain. The form by itself makes me think about rain and
I’m not quite sure why, maybe it’s the negative space and the way the form looks
like it is dripping down a log?

Horseshoe Cafe, Bellingham 1950s

Bellingham History

The 1950s were a ‘golden age for America. After the war the national
birth rate skyrocketed and the economy boomed. The soldiers who served
in WW2 where eager to rebuild their lives on home soil. The 1950s were
also regarded as a massive leap forward for mass production,
technological advancement and the desegregation of public schools. While
nationwide production of consumer products and machinery was at a
massive high, natural resources began to show their limitations.
This can be clearly observed through the history of the Bellingham
area where ‘The Rainforest’ by James FitzGerald is currently located.
Bellingham was originally a logging colony established in 1881. The original
colonists believed that the burning of San Francisco (1851) was an
opportunity to sell lumber needed to rebuild the city. Bellingham was the
perfect place to set up shop due to the abundant resources and access to
water shipping lanes. While the logging industry boomed throughout the
19th century Bellingham became a good sized city, built upon logging, coal
and canneries.
Come the mid 19th century, Bellingham began to run out of the
seemingly endless supply of natural resources. Salmon became scarce in
the fishing lanes and logging had stripped the treelines of the surrounding
hills. Bellingham had to change quickly or become the remnants of a
boomtown. Luckily the 1950s saw a massive increase in the expansion of
highways, promising new jobs and new visitors for Bellingham if they could
become connected to the rest of the U.S. directly.
James FitzGerald had ‘The Rainforest installed in 1960, right after the
fall of Bellingham’s logging career. On a national level the 1950s sculpture
scene was focused on using rustic metals and the study of the form rather
than the context of the work. Strange proportions and unconventional
colors where all the rage. This style was also adopted into the design of
automobiles and suburban architecture.

James Fitzgerald

World’s Impact on ‘Rainforest’

Commissioned in 1959, James Fitzgerald’s Rainforest is for veterans of
World War II, showing that the effects and memories of that war had not yet
faded, despite being a decade and a half ago. Around that time, the Cold
War was going strong, with tensions increasing between the Soviet Union
and the US. Another notable conflict was the Vietnam War, which sent a
great amount of unwilling US soldiers to a country where they were not
welcomed. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and replaced by
Lyndon B. Johnson. Dr. Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement was also
rising at this time, which eventually resulted in racial segregation in the US
being abolished. Fidel Castro’s revolution in Cuba drew concerns from the
US due to their support of Communism. It was indeed a turbulent time
period when James Fitzgerald was creating this piece of work. All of those
negative things such as tension, war, inequality and injustice, were rampant
during those times. I bet James wanted a break from all that,
and assumedthat his audience felt the same. When you look at
Rainforest, and at the waters trickling down its metal body,
it gives you a sense of peace and harmony.
I believe that is what James Fitzgerald wanted humanity to have during those times.

Our Project

Rainforest Mini Sculpture Project

Sculptures are placed in certain places to “activate” the environment
around it, to have it blend in or stand out, and to create a bold or subtle
statement about the area. James Fitzgerald created this piece of art to
interact with a continuously flowing stream of water. To have the water
beautifully cascade down the metal leaves and branches was certainly a
analytical, as well emotional, process for Fitzgerald. We wanted to recreate
that process by taking it upon ourselves to create a miniature, but
functional version of the sculpture. By doing so, it provided insight into
Fitzgerald’s mind, and the challenges he went through to make a functional
art piece, unique to both sculpture and fountains.
We made sure to choose our materials carefully. We needed to use
materials that were waterproof, as well as stable and true to the original
sculpture’s appearance. After looking around a hardware store, we decided
upon going with aqua-coated steel wire to represent the metal skeleton of
the sculpture. Upon our observation of the sculpture during the initial
research stage of this project, we noticed that most parts of the sculpture
had faded to a dark brown, with the original aqua-colored parts of the
sculpture only remaining in small patches. To replicate that “aged” effect,
we carefully spray-painted parts of the wire with dark brown paint. After
that, we manipulated the wire with pliers into the sculpture’s overall shape,
mounting it in a plastic bowl filled with rocks and water, much like the
sculpture’s real environment.
To mimic the fountain’s functions, we fed a clear plastic tube into the rocky
base of our sculpture, and blew into the said tube. Doing this created
bubbles that rose from the bottom of the base to the top, imitating the
continuous movement and flow of water from the original sculpture.
We made sure to place the sculpture in an environment much like a
rainforest when taking pictures of our project, as that is what sculptors
consider when placing their works in a public space. With the sand, rocks,
trees, and water surrounding our sculpture, we don’t doubt that this is a
worthy homage to James Fitzgerald’s beautiful work of art and architectural
engineering.

Sculpture emulating the form of the Rainforest

Water feature on our sculpture

Credits:

Peter Shin: Photos and Research + Project Construction

John Thayer: Research + Project Construction and Ideation

Blake Delich: WordPress Admin + Photos and Research + Project Construction