A new piece of public art has put down its roots in Metrotown.
Artists Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo of Lead Pencil Studio unveiled Old Column – a 25-foot, 1,300-pound metal sculpture that takes the shape of a Douglas Fir tree – on Wednesday at the corner of Beresford Street and Willingdon Avenue. The site is where Boffo Developments’ new Modello tower stands.
The pair is widely known for their work, including a sculpture at the Peace Arch border crossing called Non-Sign II, a blank space in the shape of a billboard that is surrounded by tangled metal.
Old Column was Han’s and Mihalyo’s first commissioned art piece in Canada – one that seeks to show the transition from the natural environment to the urban. It’s meant to be the focal point of the Beresford Art Walk planned for Metrotown.
Completing Old Column took the Seattle-based artists nine months, five months more than anticipated.
“We had to do it from one corner and build up, so we had to cut the angles and grind them out, as we made each piece,” Han tells the NOW.
They chose the Douglas fir because they were inspired by the trees in nearby Central Park.
“We were thinking a lot about concrete buildings how much wood goes into making them and that sort of translation of the natural environment to the urban environment,” says Mihalyo, adding some parts of the sculpture are plated with 24-carat gold.
“We wanted it to take a natural form to show its transformation from a tree, to a log, to a structural shape, also our scientific view of that – understanding the tree in sections and how it draws water from the roots to the branches, at hundreds of feet tall. It’s a very mechanical system to get water that high.”
Old Column cost around $300,000 and was paid solely by Boffo. Han notes more and more developers are adopting public art into their public spaces.
“People are realizing there are things that are important to us that are visual and there are things that are important to us that are beyond going to a subscribed experience, (like) going to the gallery space,” she says.
Besides wanting passersby to admire their work, Han and Mihalyo want people to touch it and really interact with it.
They urge the public to check out Old Column in the afternoon when the sun comes around the corner and the rays bring it to life.
