In 2013 the City of Greeley, CO set out to procure a new piece of Public Art for the Union Colony Civic Center. This Art, funded by the local water district’s contribution to the city’s 1% for Art fee program, was to incorporate water and it was desired that the sculpture would tell some story about the importance or preciousness of water in the area. A nation-wide Call for Artists was published, and Chris was fortunate enough to be selected as part of a shortlist alongside a handful of other Artists.
After visiting the site and meeting with the stakeholders and other shortlisted Artists, Chris headed out into the surrounding countryside to take a look at local water infrastructure and inspiration, then ventured up into the Rocky Mountains above the town to view more of the same. The impressive infrastructure that had been erected to contain and capture the flow of the Big Thompson River flowing down through the canyons of the front range made it clear how far man was willing to go to try to control mother nature and harness this most valuable of resources, diverting it to now fertile farmland in the previously arid plain below. Crops, however, weren’t the only thing covering the countryside around Greeley; the area was dotted with oil wells, collection tanks, and a maze of plumbing that mark the pulling of another resource from the Earth.
Taking cues from these disparate systems and the cowboy attitude of those attempting to wrangle the natural forces behind them, Chris created his concept Interference. This piece utilizes a restored oil pumping unit mounted atop an elliptical plinth clad in sparkling black granite aggregate. This style of pump is cyclical – liquid is pulled up with each upstroke; this cycle would be replicated in the water feature so that a whitewater wave would gush over the plinth in synch with the movements of the nodding donkey, ridden by a figure loosely sculpted in wire.
Unfortunately, mother nature decided she had other plans and unleashed torrential rains over the region and the mountains above, sending a ten-foot high wall of water crashing through the towns at the base of the front range and causing widespread flooding throughout Greeley and the surrounding region. As the flooding hit the oil fields, over 1,900 wells were shut down, but that still wasn’t enough to prevent over 50,000 gallons of oil from being spilled as tanks were washed away; the oil was carried by the floodwaters and eventually either settled across the farmland or flowed into more waterways and continued a journey downstream.
With funding needed for massive cleanup and renovations, the project was canceled – the concept for Interference more relevant than ever. Chris is looking forward to the opportunity to building this piece somewhere, someday.
