This winning design for a Corcoran public art competition celebrates the iconic form of the Adirondack chair. The familiar silhouette, perhaps a long cast shadow on a sunny afternoon, inspires emotions associated with summer. My design plays with this image, abstracts it, and casts it upon itself. In the spirit of Gerrit Rietveld’s architectural abstractions in form and color, the design is composed of simple shapes and vivid colors on planar surfaces that engage the viewer’s line of sight to imply a shift in time and space. As a shadow moves and interacts with its surroundings with time even as its subject remains motionless, so the design suggests an image, moving and yet still, changing and yet timeless. The playful pastel colors conjure summer sensations as mundane as Leave it to Beaver or as edgy as Miami Vice. This design acknowledges the implications of the Adirondack chair form and projects it on itself for the viewer to interact with.
