Horizon Day 5: 5 Letters in 9 Hours

Finally all of the letters have been poured.  The marathon of pouring finished at 6pm today with the last batch if concrete mixed by hand.  Tomorrow will be the exciting removal of the forms.

Some images from today:

HDTS 2013 & Earthbound Moon

We are super excited that Scott Oliver, installing in Rio Del Oro, New Mexico, is being included as part of High Desert Test Sites 2013 (HDTS 2013).  The week long event, running from October 12 -19, spans a the distance from the California Mojave Desert to Albuquerque.  There are 60 artists participating, with their projects and performances viewable during the event. You can see the long list of awesome artists and projects here: http://www.highdeserttestsites.com/site

HDTS 2013 is currently fundraising through USA Projects, an online fundraising tool specifically for artistic endeavors, for this fall's event.  They have reached their initial goal to fund the business end of HDTS 2013.  Their campaign runs for 11 more days and have generously promised to direct the rest of their funds over their initial amount to the 60 event artists, which includes Scott Oliver.

Please check out the HDTS 2013 page on USA Projects (http://www.usaprojects.org/project/hdts_2013) and donate if you can to help Scott Oliver and the other HDTS artists.

A New Horizon in Rio del Oro

This fall we have the pleasure of working with Fort Bragg, California, artist Scott Oliver in Rio del Oro.  The site is part of the largely undeveloped Rio Communities south east of Los Lunas, New Mexico. 

A New Horizon will consist of 7 large letters cast from local aggregate materials.  As Oliver states, it "... is a spot to rest and a vantage point from which to take in the surroundings even as it bifurcates one’s attention between near and far. Made out of the ground on which it rests, A New Horizon is literally part of the landscape—a patch of untamed desert given coherent (if enigmatic) form." 

With A New Horizon, Oliver is also referencing a division which has defined the empty, but parceled out acreage.  The Rio Communites were part of a dubious real estate venture in the 1960's where the area was divided up and sold employing the romance and lure of the American West.  The corporation, also named Horizon, created subdivisions that were and are all but impossible to build.  More information about the site and the Horizon will be provided in a later post.

Oliver's work will incorporate the physical and historical aspects of the site and as he states it is "...meant to be a pause—an interstice in the landscape and in time. It begs the question: what’s
next? But is unconcerned with the answer. The space it defines is the space between."

An event is planned on-site at the completion of the installation on October 19.  The event titled Desert Dumbballs & Llano Stories.  Oliver describes the event as "a hybrid of contemporary
Chautauqua and sculptural performance."  The event will include performances and presentations that exploring the project site and its surroundings.

Oliver has the honor of being listed as a part of the High Desert Test Sites 2013.  The program is a series of desert installations, events and performances that stretch from the Mojave Desert to Albuquerque from October 12 - 19.