A new aluminum art installation depicting an eagle in flight is going up at The Waterfront Vancouver’s Block 9 building, called The Jean, where WildFin sits.
Artist Grace Chadwick designed the metal sculptures, five double-layered eagles, in her studio near Fish Hawk Lake, Ore. For years, she’s been submitting different designs to the building’s ownership group, Gramor Development, which chose her eagle design.
“I’m really happy with it,” Chadwick said on Monday, standing in a drizzle while a team with a cherry picker installed the pieces. “I want people to feel serene when they see it.”
By the end of the day today, all the eagles will be mounted to the building. It’s the largest work of art that Chadwick has created (the largest eagle is 11-by-4 feet), and it’s her first outdoor piece.
A company in Donald, Ore., GK Machine Inc., used a laser cutter to cut the aluminum eagles, Chadwick said. The aluminum is powder-coated and has a brown hue.
“We always wanted to install a piece of artwork on the side of the Jean building but hadn’t found the right fit until now,” said Barry Cain, president of Gramor Development. “Grace did a fantastic job of not only capturing the beauty of the natural landscape at The Waterfront, but also the energy surrounding Vancouver’s future and what’s to come.”
For 31 years, Chadwick has been sculpting metal. In her early years of metalwork, she would visit Portland’s South Waterfront industrial area to get free pieces of metal to cut into art, she said. Chadwick learned how to plasma cut from YouTube videos with rented tools and no formal education.
The eagle sculpture is not yet named, but Chadwick said she is considering fielding suggestions through her Instagram account, @bigsculture, or instagram.com/bigsculpture.
