Nebula

2010 – 90’x50′ 140′ high. 14,064 bicycle reflectors, pulleys, aluminum, steel, and one electric motor.

The creation of the Nebula was a team effort, and I am both pleased and humbled to work with so many amazing people in what came to be called Team Nebula.
First thanks go to Crow Holdings and the Hilton Anatole for their love of art, the creation of a spectacular hotel, and for their hospitality to everyone who worked on the Nebula and simply for inviting me to be part of the atrium’s vision. Thanks in particular to Harlan Crow, Sarah Puckett, Emily Owens and Richard Dringole.

Thanks to EDG in Santa Rosa, CA, the architecture firm that both designed the renovation and proposed a suspended kinetic artwork. Thanks in particular to Jennifer Johanson, Sharon Sutton, and Steven King.

Thanks to Costis Alexakis for fabulous drawing skills and for making the rendering, and early Nebula drawings.

Thanks to Joe Ansel for indispensable guidance and wisdom about how to accomplish a sculpture of this scale and complexity.

Huge thanks to the many people at Gizmo Art Productions, Inc, in San Francisco, who spent months working with me, the engineers, the hotel, countless vendors and subcontractors, to heroically fabricate and install the Nebula. This sculpture would not exist without all their work and creativity – and it needed a lot of both!

Gizmo Art Productions:
Mark Sabatino, Principal
Eric Reedy, Production Manager
T. Craig Brinton, Designer
Jon Eaton, Lead Welder
Vicki Vaughn, Project Manager
Reid Johnston, Lead Installer
And thanks for the long hours of good humored work from the installation crew: Schuyler Robertson, Liz Judkins, Don Paul Swain, Morgan Raymond and Bryan Thomas.

Thanks to Michael A. Prados, PE of Ideal Mechanism, whose mechanical engineering was indispensable to the success of the sculpture, in particular for the design and analysis of the truss, cable net, ring, spokes, motor and swing arm, and thimble.

Thanks to Martin Graves and James Mosher at Hunt&Joiner for superb structural engineering analysis, both on the sculpture and the ceiling.

Thanks to Cateye for bicycle reflectors.

Thanks to Greg Soja at Sava Cable for cable, pulleys and Dacron.

Thanks to Perrin Meyer for help analyzing the weave and enjoying math as much as he does.

Thanks to Dan Torop for math and programming skills, as well as ten days of hard work, steering me through the weave string by string – turning a tangle into a work of art.

Thanks to Pro-Rig for installing the hoist motors and for climbing out to along the ceiling trusses 140 feet in the air to do the rigging.

Thanks to Greg and Annaliza at Wired.com for documenting the process, in particular for filming the entire installation.

Thanks to Scott Oldner for fabulous colored lighting.