Public Art

Artist Lisa Scheer was commissioned to create a work of public art for 750 N Glebe Road, a new residential development coming to Ballston. The artist was inspired by plants and the Art Deco style for the sculpture which will be created out of patinated bronze. The work will be situated in an intimate plaza area at N Vermont Street.

Funded by Saul Centers, Inc.

Flame‘s helical form is composed of dichroic glass joined with a steel framework. Dichroic glass exhibits different colors as it reflects or transmits light. Acting as a beacon to those entering and leaving the Ballston neighborhood, Flame‘s appearance is in constant flux as lighting conditions shift. Sunlight strikes the glass to create a shimmering appearance, while internal lighting subtly illuminates the sculpture after dark.

Artist Ray King began his career as a stained glass apprentice, receiving a Louis C. Tiffany Fellowship in 1975. Flame represents an outgrowth of King’s original training and his decades-long fascination with color and light. King eventually brought his glass work into three dimensions, thus expanding the effect light could have on his sculptures.

Flame won the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Year in Review Award.

Funded by the JBG Companies.

Artist Jackie Ferrara and landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg designed this two-level, 40,000 square foot courtyard. Tucked away from its urban surroundings, the quiet refuge features a fountain, water wall and channel, benches, wisteria-entwined steel canopy, and interlocking pavers. The various components are unified through a strong sense of geometry and pattern. Ferrara has long been interested in creating distinct environments in which architectural forms and materials merge with sculpture and design.

Funded by the JBG Companies and J.E. Roberts Companies.

Wendy Ross’ sculpture Bud/Blossom reflects the artist’s interest in interpreting patterns of energy and progressions of growth and change borrowed from the natural environment. It was inspired by the intrinsic geometry of a floral structure. This geometry is expressed through the symmetrical arrangement of  stainless steel rods which impart the work with a strong spatial linear component. Chevron patterns move along the sculpture’s swelling framework and taper toward its pinnacle. The expansion and contraction of the sculpture reflects nature’s energy as well as that of the busy intersection at which the artwork stands.

Although Ross has worked in a variety of media including wood, rope, straw, and bronze, the use of welded steel marked a turning point in her creative development. Steel’s strength, durability, and application in large scale sculpture make it the ideal material for Ross’s open and airy constructions that cross the domains of science, architecture, and art.

Funded by Monument Realty, LLC. 

Sixteen vertical bands of multi-colored glass are installed between the rungs of this 40 foot long fence which separates the public plaza from the private, residential courtyard. The glass panels were kiln-cast, a process by which one-time-use plaster molds are placed inside of 1550 degrees Fahrenheit kilns. Float glass is loaded on top of the molds and color is added. Each panel is annealed for 24 hours and then removed from the plaster for cleaning, polishing, and installation.

Tim Tate co-founded the Washington Glass Studio in 2001 and has been working with glass for more than a decade. The studio was able to use these glass panels as educational tools in their school prior to installation.

Funded by the Shooshan Company.