Upright Plain 

Plans for a sculpture for the A. Zahner Juried Design Competition:

Maps are ideologically loaded images. This object offers a way of seeing Kansas City that is empirical, but expands upon it's conventional depiction.

The low relief of the floodplains and riverbeds cut contours that are less iconic than streets and highways, but in reality are more fundamental to the structure and ecology of the city.  

Conceding the extent and importance of the man made city and it's abstract (though consequential) boundaries is the rectangle of bronze left un-oxidized. By intentional application of acetic acid, the surface of the plate is made blue/green, except for this rectangle which both affirms the existence and relevence of city's center, and highlights its arbitrary and artificial form within an emergent geological context. 

As this object is exposed to the weather, rain flows down its surface. Making its way into the sewer and creek systems of the area, runoff eventually joins the Missouri river's easterly advance. Thus, by orienting the image with east at the bottom, we are reinforcing our place within hydrology which the relief depicts. 

The contrast between the rectangle and the floodplain relief is not adversarial or polemic. Both are given weight, but created and read in different languages. The natural supports the man made, though retaining its own character.