Beacon Bloom

Beacon Bloom is a roundabout sculpture created for The City of Carmel. Residing at Westfield Boulevard and 96th Street, viewers approaching and passing the roundabout see three steel flower-like structures with curvy stems. They face south, northeast, and northwest. The composition is raised well above the roundabout, making it easily visible to motorists; the tallest is more than thirty feet high. As viewers circle the form, its flowers’ undulating stems seem to make the sculpture come alive. At night the structure displays a delicate, multi-colored play of lights reflected in the undersides of the seven hundred and sixty eight stainless steel florets, which form the three flowers.

The sculpture serves as a beacon, signaling the presence of the roundabout not with a warning, but with a welcoming expression of hope and growth. It also marks an important entrance to the city. The whole piece looks like a subtle firework display, a moment frozen in time. Inspired by the artist’s ongoing study of plant forms, this sculpture continues his work exploring light and form in public art.

Atop each stem is a tilted twelve-foot wide domed flower. The flowers are comprised of sixteen stainless steel clusters on curved cluster arms. Each similarly domed cluster is two feet wide and contains sixteen florets, endless laser-cut three lobed loops of folded stainless steel strip. Inside each floret a space age coated dichroic glass lens covers an LED light source so that by night each is bathed in subtly changing colored light. The seven hundred and sixty eight florets together use only 135 watts of electricity.

The artist, Arlon Bayliss, is a sculptor based in Anderson, Indiana.  Originally trained as a studio glass practitioner, and the founding director of the glass program at Anderson University, since 2014 he has focused his work on architectural-scale projects in metal, glass, and light.