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| Clyde Lynds |
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Ad Astra Per Aspera
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Completion Date:
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1995
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Medium:
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Fiber Optic Sculpture
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Dimensions:
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3' x 12' x 14'
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Location:
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Townsend Harris High School
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Address:
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149th Street/Melbourne Avenue, Queens
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Architect:
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HOK
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Sponsor Agency:
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Board of Education
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Design Agency:
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School Construction Authority
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Clyde Lynds' use of technology yields changing patterns of light glowing from the surface of a monolithic concrete lintel. Lynds casts fiber optics in the concrete then designs programs to create continuously changing displays of light that appear to come from within the stone. This artwork is a gateway to the school library and reflects the school's classical curriculum; Latin and Greek are both taught at the school. Patterns which appear on the arch form the Latin epigram Through difficulty to the stars. The phrase transforms into a square grid, a circle and at other times disperses into a pattern of stars. These stars are the western night sky of June 22, 367 B.C., as Aristotle would have seen it when he was seventeen years old.
About the Artist...
Clyde Lynds' work appears in numerous public collections,
including the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution,
the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, CT, and the Butler Institute of American
Art in Youngstown, Ohio. He has received commissions from the Federal
Government's General Services Administration and the states of New Jersey and
Connecticut. Ad Astra per Aspera
is his first publicly commissioned work in New York City. He also has completed a three story high, fiber optic and concrete relief sculpture for the Federal Office Building at Foley Square in Manhattan.
Artist Quote...
Combining an age-old Latin phrase with technology that borders on the magical transforms and reinforces each in unexpected ways. As stone turns to light it disrupts our expectations, not only of what is possible, but also of what is. -- Lynds, 1990
