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| Julie Dermansky |
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See Also Beach Channel Day Care Center
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Yellow Bird Floor
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Completion Date:
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2000
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Medium:
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Linoleum and Steel
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Dimensions:
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1550 Square Feet
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Location:
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Second Street Day Care Center
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Address:
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333 2nd St.,
Brooklyn
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Architect:
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Buttrick, White, and Burtis
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Sponsor Agency:
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Agency for Child Development
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Design Agency:
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Department of Design and Construction
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Julie Dermansky created a motif of birds and flowers in a bright palette of primary colors and transformed it into a linoleum floor that covers both floors in the day care center. The floor seemed like a natural surface to use for a canvas when designing for children, as they are the primary users of the building. The artist wanted to create a work that they could experience day after day in a different way. "Walking the halls will be a joyful adventure for the occupants' eyes and hopefully stimulate their imagination when they go into the classrooms," said Dermansky. She also added decorative steel elements of birds, flowers, and turtles to the stairwell that she cut out with a plasma cutter. These elements were welded to the otherwise institutional style bars that close in the staircase.
About the Artist...
"I have been creating things since as long as I can remember," explained Julie. Born 4/28/66, Dermansky committed herself to being an artist at an early age. Raised in Englewood, NJ, her earliest inspiration comes from the Cloisters and the Natural History Museum in New York City. She graduated from Tulane/Newcomb University with a concentration in ceramics and sculpture and was awarded the Watson Fellowship, which enabled her to travel for a year and visit monumental and architectural sculptures. On her return to New York City, Dermansky worked in the East Village before attending graduate school out west. However, New York City called her back. Dermansky lived and worked for ten years in a storefront studio on Elizabeth Street. There she worked on many large scale sculpture projects including a 100 foot long fence on East 12th Street and began showing her work both nationally and internationally. Requiring more space, Dermansky has since relocated upstate. At the same time she launched a web site JSDART.com so people would still have access to her work. The Percent for Art Program was her first public art commission.
Artist Quote...
"I have always had the tendency to work large. Public art is the perfect venue for an artist with the desire to work in a large scale while at the same time allowing for the most interaction with the artwork and viewers as possible, so I found it a natural path to pursue. After visiting Gaudi's Gwell Park in Barcelona, I dreamed of adding something to the world that would inspire others, as his work had me. So much of the modern landscape is bland. Often I see the inside of tunnels as blank canvases waiting to be painted, and plain buildings as structures to be covered with sculptures. Creating work for a specific audience to enhance and stimulate their day to day experience is very satisfying to me, in ways the work I make in my studio for myself does not. Working on a large scale, for the public, is a way for me to give something back to the community and enhance the environment for those who come after me." -- Julie Dermansky, 2001
