Fountain Proposals Digital drawing proposal for stainless steel and grey granite water feature. I am very excited to propose a water feature/sculpture. I believe my concept is innovative and draws upon the elements that are universally compelling about water moving around and through an object. I designed and built a water feature for the Illinois Percent for Art Program in the D. N. R. building in Springfield and have also been contracted to install and engineer several fountains for Jaume Plensa, Kike Smith and others, providing me with an understanding of the requirements needed to make these features work. My experience making public sculpture spans over 40 years. I have completed commissioned works for Autopistas de Mediterraneo in Barcelona, Spain and eight works for the Illinois Capitol Development Board and the Iowa Percent for Arts. My work is also owned by sculpture parks, Universities and many private individuals. This background has provided a high level of experience dealing with the issues that can accompany the creation of outdoor art: aesthetics, budget, and the community. Furthermore, I work in materials that are rugged and well-suited to any climate and which will endure without maintenance in nearly any public location. Click Here to View Artwork Drift: Riparian Repose As the paddle dips into the stream's current, the pressure forms a fleeting "J" in the water that fades behind with the passing riverbank. Snags of downed timber and branches form intricate horizontal patterns and monumental arches left scattered periodically along the river course by the spring floods. The powerful flow of water has flattened almost everything to parallel its surface, land and vegetation alike In 'Drift: Riparian Repose' I envision a horizontal orientation inspired by the flow of a stream. Large enough to command the space but not so large as to overwhelm the human viewer. I judged the proportions and textures carefully, taking my cues from the vegetation washed up by spring floods, to produce a sense of the monumental while still connecting at a personal and human scale. Though the original inspiration for the sculpture is the tractrical motions created as a stream's current passes over vegetation, the final form also invokes man's involvement with and dependence upon our waterways. The sinuous yet rough and broken elements of the structure evoke those remnants of past achievements uprooted and left behind, by the inexorable downstream flow. Click Here to View Artwork Redtail Concrete and Steel, 2015, 20 x 40 x 12 ft University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa From a nearly motionless hover the hawk dived. Caught by a sudden gust of wind, she adjusts into a spiral and arcs back toward her prey. Talons extended, she makes contact in a splash of dust. Though the female hawk I observed out of my studio door missed whatever she was after, the lines of motion she made, as the wind gust threw her off course, and the image of her wings turned back as she connected with the earth, are the origin of "Redtail". Though the original gesture springs from a chance observation, the final model for "Redtail" takes its form from the intended location. The hawk's wings become folding doors, or the covers of a book. An opening at their hinged juncture forms an entryway for the viewer to pass optically and physically from the concave to the convex in a setting suggestive of the Paleolithic, metaphorically to a place where the ancient is examined and the future is planned. The spiraling path of downward flight becomes a soaring advance over and through this entryway--a balanced tension evoking the interplay of exuberant curiosity anchorde by the stele of accumulated knowledge, the motive forces that come together in the university. Click Here to View Artwork Mike Baur Summer 2013 Galleries and shows showing my work this year. Click Here to View Artwork Solo Show OK Harris, Oct. 27 - Dec 1, 2012 Photos of works taken at the opening Click Here to View Artwork Aquifer Fountain located in the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Building in Springfield, Illinois. Click Here to View Artwork 40/40 Exhibition Mainstay is included in the Ukranian Museum of Modern Art's Fortieth Anniversary Exhibition. Opens April 15, 2011 Click Here to View Artwork Willis Tower Exhibition These works are on exhibit in the Atrium and Lobby of Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) in Chicago through the middle of May 2011 Click Here to View Artwork Large Scale Sculpture Public and Private Commissions Click Here to View Artwork Medium Scale Sculpture Life Size Click Here to View Artwork Small Works Table top size Click Here to View Artwork Reliefs Hang or lean on the wall Click Here to View Artwork Digital Prints Drawn on computer using combinations of drawing tools, photographs and scans of 3-d objects. These are not reproductions from an original but were created as originals on the computer. Click Here to View Artwork   biography | artwork | resume | links | contact        site by rodman