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here is a myth that comes from the Czech Republic:
“Every time there is a pause in conversation a police officer
is born.” There was enough thoughtful silence to produce
a brand new police station in Rose Park. The good news is that it
also stormed up a public art commission to create two pieces—one
inside and one outside the station—that could feed the ideals
of good police behavior.
Dan Gerheart, the conceptual frontman, and Shawn Porter, the technical
genius, stood in the only lit warehouse in an industrial park, perfumed
with lacquer thinner. A pristine multifaceted wooden disk spanning
7 feet sat between them and their weathered jeans.
“The night is the only time we get time to work,” Gerheart
says without even seeming tired after his 100-plus-hour work week.
They exude an excited energy, pardon the assonance.
The artwork consists of those wooden disks, each devoted to a basic
shape. Circles, squares, and maybe an assortment of the following:
an interplay of circles mingling with circles, and squares fighting
their right-angle-hood around the perimeter while triangles shock
and dazzle in sun-beaming arches. Convexed round shells of bronze
lace set the center for each dish. They are bowed over—perfect
circular sprockets only imagined in sci-fi novels. The exterior
piece puts the bronze structure on stilts in a spherical cluster
of bubbles.
The board that chose Gerheart for the commission was made up of
police, architects and community members, allowing for a link between
the police and the citizens.
Many applied. The decision was made after studying artists’
portfolios and plans for the commission. Gerheart worked for a month
on a quarter-scale model for the exterior. The model is still large
and it took a huge amount of dedication. “I had to work as
though I already had the job,” he said. Gerheart was overjoyed
to receive the commission and was content that much of the troubleshooting
took place in the tryout period. This is the largest art commission
in the city right now, at $75,000.
Gerheart
hopes that all people can respond to the piece’s recognizable
elements—circles, squares and triangles. He utilizes natural
law and the geometric principles that he believes ancient Greeks
used to inculcate democracy.
The inside piece is very refined and perfected. Gerheart allowed
the exterior piece, which is already up in front of the station,
to be more chaotic. “I try to control the destructive process
of casting.” This is a metaphor for the reality of what happens
on the outside of the station. It mirrors the memorial to slain
officers on the opposite corner. Gerheart realizes that police work
does not always equate with favorable outcomes.
“The police officers I’ve known have been social workers.
It is their day-to-day life to calm situations,” he says.
“Art is supposed to humanize.”
Gerheart wishes to lend natural law in its most ideal forms, thus
“augmenting the system.”
Instead of sending the steel and wood work out to a foundry, Gerheart
recruited his skilled friends.
“Finally, they get to be paid what they are worth,”
Gerheart says. He is immensely impressed with their master craftsmanship—not
to mention that if the piece were sent out it easily would be $125,000
over budget.
Larry Wheeler, a sculpture graduate of the U, helped Gerheart with
much of the casting and welding. “He is just a better welder
than I am,” said Gerheart. The ornate work is the product
of an exhausting process of slumping, chasing, cutting, welding,
casting…there is more, but let’s stop.
Porter solved problems and kept Gerheart time-efficient and cost-effective.
He was especially in charge of the wood and is well-practiced after
doing woodwork for more than 13 years. He wanted to do all of the
wood himself, but eventually Porter’s fussy fastidiousness
trained Gerheart and he contributed.
One of the disks took a week, but with the help of Holly Christmas,
Porter’s girlfriend, the process was narrowed to a weekend.
Porter’s pet, Dogie, played dodge ball safely in the alley.
“Getting kind of a goofy buzz off of that lacquer thinner,”
Porter said as the dog simpered and shook his head. Gerheart recalls
how he would ask if a task was possible and Porter would find the
most simple and correct way to do it.
“I definitely could not have done this without him.”
“I have been a lackey. I have been a lackey for a long time,”
explains Porter through the ongoing joke of being Gerheart’s
art slave.
“Art demands complete slavery. You have to pursue it hard,”
Gerheart admits.
“I’d rather be a slave to art,” Porter shrugs
and goes back to work.
Some of the exotic woods include walnut burl, bulbinga, fiddle back
movingui, pillowed maple and zebra wood. The wood was cut to give
off an iridescent shimmer. Two solid coats were painted to protect
and fill the wood and a shiny top coat was added with a special
no-air pump and sprayer. In order to create the piece Gerheart has
found, there are many “crazy little tools that you have to
have and have to know how to run just right.” It is an involved
process from every angle.
Porter even made little suction cups to keep all of the pieces in
their perfect place. The geometric wooden disk is painstakingly
boxed out to make it a bit lighter. It is still 250 lbs. without
the 75 lb. bronze-laced domes.
Global Artways, a government-sponsored organization created to give
public schoolchildren more access to art, recently gave Gerheart
the head director position in administration. He has worked as an
art educator for years. He got his undergraduate degree from Colorado
State University and is certified to teach K-12. He finished his
masters in sculpture at the U.
During his work on the commissioned artwork, Gerheart “discovered
food at the 7-Eleven” in the forms of protein bars, protein
shakes and good-but-low-in-protein coffee. He and Porter have listened
to massive amounts of NPR and KRCL. “We went through every
CD I own.”
There is no end in sight for helplessly art-devoted Gerheart and
Porter, and they hope to apply for more large-scale public commissions.
May the Power Bar-and-coffee lunch keep these boys off of the crack
and let them actualize their artistic visions deep into the night.
The new precinct is located on 700 S. 1000 West and is scheduled
to open at the end of September.
stephanie@red-mag.com
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