HOUSTON REVIEW
Dixie Friend Gay
Bush Intercontinental Airport Terminal B
Reviewed by Janaki Lennie
Thanks to the Civic Arts Program, an initiative of the Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County, 1.75 percent of the budget for eligible public projects is now earmarked for art. This has provided unparalleled opportunities for local artists. At George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston artist Dixie Friend Gay, working with Rey de la Reza Architects, is among those who have realized large-scale, high-budget projects in high profile public spaces through this program.
For many studio-based artists, calls for submissions for public art projects, seemingly unrelated to their daily work, can be daunting. At the outset details are often sketchy, scope only vaguely defined and the prospect of working with a team of architects and designers already familiar with the process, intimidating. Hence, the successful completion of such a project, with its melding of individual vision, awareness of functional needs and limitations and the kind of transformation that can be wrought on the space must be gratifying to all parties, but particularly to the artist.
This public art project is certainly successful. Gay's artwork has enlivened and activated the walk-through space between Terminal B lobby and parking garage at the airport. Her glass mosaic wall and columns representing a Houston bayou with its flora and fauna have created a distinct sense of place, dramatically contrasting in character and ambiance to the utilitarian confusion of the lobby on one end and the wasteland of the car park on the other. The space is open and light, with circular glass walls looking out onto plantings of azaleas and grasses. A central rotunda demarcated by a ceiling void and articulated by four stout lozenge-shaped columns forms one part of the artwork. On the floor radiating from the center between the columns is the organic outline of tree branches or roots. Leading off from this central area towards the car park is the other part of the artwork, a 78 by 8 foot serpentine mosaic wall of softly glistening tesserae.
Gay is known for her lush paintings of natural
expertly translated into the unfamiliar medium of mosaic tile. The hazy horizon and linear swirling reeds and branches of a bayou environment are portrayed with a satisfying range and depth of color and tone: greens and pinks predominate, spiced with sour yellows and soft grays in undulating rhythms. The atmospheric illusion of the scene is balanced by the physicality of the exquisite Mexican glass tiles, which return the viewer's attention to the surface itself to examine the subtle patterns of their installation.
Dixie Friend Gay, Houston Bayou, 1998-2002
Glass mosaic mural
78x8'
Courtesy the artist
Dixie Friend Gay, Houston Bayou (detail), 1998-2002
Glass mosaic mural
Courtesy the artist
environments, trees and wild creatures, and for her distinctive rendering using atmospheric perspective and precise draftsmanship. These qualities have been
I sat and watched as a family with two young children emerged from the lobby and traversed the space towards the car park. As the parents lingered at the mosaic wall, reaching out to touch the tiny tiles, the youngest child became engrossed in the floor details, first noticing the bronze fish and crabs embedded in the terrazzo, then tracing with his steps the concentric rings of the terrazzo tree until he arrived at the center of the rotunda where Gay had installed dappled lighting mimicking a forest floor. Here the child remained stationary for a minute before looking up, delighted and intrigued.
For travelers arriving in the Bayou City, the mural and the environment Gay has created offer a vision of delightful nature, still water cranes and hummingbirds, the promise of inviting, cool shade. What inevitably greets them however as they begin the long commute away from the airport in any direction, is concrete-lined waterways, expanses of mowed grass and domesticated plantings between the concrete piers of the overpasses. Not that the bayous don't exist. Remnants of these native environments can still be found in special places around the city. The seemingly fabulous colors of Gay's mural are not at all exaggerated, you discover, when you come across such a place. Gay's airport commission is a beautiful space; quiet, restful, refreshing, affirmative. It makes you want to go and find those precious pockets of wilderness that have been spared by relentless urban development.
artlies winter 2003-2003 85