Mar 312015
2825 Diamond Street
Glen Park
Six Degrees is an artwork installed in the entrance of Glen Park Branch Library done in 2007 for $36,000. The artists are Reddy Lieb and Linda Raynsford.
The circular art elements were inspired by the history and ecology of Glen Park. The circle, which the artists used as their main geometric design form, is intended to symbolize wholeness and community.
Specific references in the artwork are:
- In 1889, an amusement park was built in Glen Canyon to attract potential home buyers. One of the attractions was tightrope walker Jimmy “Scarface” Williams.
- Early streetcar tracks in Glen Park are silk screened on another metal circle.
- An abstracted glass bat house refers to a recent mosquito abatement program that included the installation of nine bat houses near Islais Creek.
- A blue painted circle represents Islais Creek.
- In 1965, when there were plans to destroy the southwest portion of Glen Park to improve automobile transit, three woman—Geraldine Arkush, Zoann Nordstrom,and Joan Siebold, collectively known as the Gum Tree Girls— helped prevent that development.
- The outline of a red-tailed hawk’s wings is painted on a yellow circle.
- Copper cut-outs fused in glass are images of plant life in Glen Park.
- A poem written by local poet Diane DiPrima for William Blake is fired into a circular glass medallion near the bottom of the artwork. The entire poem reads as follows:For Blakeby now it is too late to wonder
why we are wherever we are
(tho some peace is possible): singing on the breath
& we have had bodies of Fire and lived in the Sun
& we have had bodies of Water and lived in Venus
and bodies of Air that screeched as they tore around Jupiter all our eyes remembering Love
Reddy Lieb has a BA in art and an MFA in Glass Blowing, she lives in San Francisco. Linda Raynsford has a BFA from California College of Arts