ARTIST | EDUCATOR | LEADER
ACERO PICADO
permanent public installation
steel
48” h x 63” w x 8” d
2012-2017
Acero Picado, which translates loosely to pecked/perforated steel, is an enlarged, contemporary adaptation of papel picado, the decorative craft from Mexico in which artists use chisels to punch elaborate designs in stacks of tissue paper. Instead of paper, Acero Picado was cut by waterjet from 16-gauge, hot rolled steel, synthesizing contemporary technology, industrial materials, and a humble papercraft of my childhood.
Acero Picado includes images of cloud-forms, plants, flowers, and animals. The forms are conjoined; they flow into one another, making it difficult to separate earth from sky from living being. In this way, everything is interconnected and interdependent. Acero Picado imagines a space in which living, dynamic forces are intertwined: appearing and disappearing, seen and unseen, constantly shifting with the sun and fostering a multilayered and changing experience of shape, light, shadow, and space.
The artwork is installed in the courtyard of the City of Santa Fe's downtown Water Street restroom facility.