Deep Gradient / Suspect Terrain

Image: Sediment collection / Gulf of the Farallones / 4 miles off the Golden Gate / 1993


Sediments collected from the Gulf of the Farallones were installed on the inner ribs of the steel and glass ship/public art work, Deep Gradient/Suspect Terrain, Yerba Buena Gardnens, San Francisco, CA, 1993.

Sediment collection and text overlay of potential minerals is chronicled in:
Gradient / 1994 / single channel video, color, sound / 00:06:00 / https://vimeo.com/195562248.


Protogaea Civica I, II, III

Image: Geology Flags Project: Protogaea Civica I (Franciscan Formation, San Francisco, CA)
Cross section and map showing basement geology and location of flags - center of orange circle

A series of geology flags demarcating the site geology were installed at Fishermans Wharf, 2004, San Francisco Civic Center, 2005, and the Sonoma Museum of Art, 2006.

The three projects of Protogaea Civica I, II, III are chronicled in the video:
Geology Flags 2004-06 / HD video/sound / 5:49 / https://vimeo.com/215361027



Deep Gradient / Suspect Terrain // Protogaea Civica I, II, III

Deep Gradient/Suspect Terrain and the Protogaea Civica I, II, II series are site-based projects investigating the geology of the San Francisco Bay region and central California. Both of these projects are precursors of a set of investigations, San Francisco Wharf Complex, 2008 - present, based upone research done under several grants and a Bernard Osher Fellowship at the Exploratorium, 2008-2012. The most recent form of this work is, San Francisco Wharf Complex / American Industrial Center Carbonate Group, 2015, also included in the Shear Zones group of extended work in ceramics/geology.

Deep Gradient/Suspect Terrain is derived from an earlier glass ship project, the third element of The Lahontan Group I-III, 1985-87 - Vanishing Ship: Greenhouse for Lake Lahontan, 1987. This group of related works reference the geology of Lake Lahontan, an ice age lake of northern Nevada. The kiln project, Ancient Shoreline: Island for Lake Lahontan, 1985, was the first of this series.

Protogaea Civica I, II, II are site-specific works that demarcate the geology beneath the flag pole or poles. The images on the flags are from symbols and patterns used on geology maps. The individual flags represent a predominate rock type of the site as well as the anthropocene built-environment using architectural symbology for the flag images.

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