Passaggio

Passaggio is located at the entrance to Asa Bales Park  and was commissioned by the Grand Junction Task Group

From the City of Westfield website:

Passaggio functions as an entry passageway and contemplative space for residents and visitors to Asa Bales park. The artwork opens the way into the park and allows for reflection on what has grown and what can develop in the future. The name Passaggio references a passageway or turning point in a journey, which brings together the emphasis of the past, present, and future that is explored in this piece. An artwork such as this in Westfield gives an opportunity for residents to reflect on the past, as well as to examine where they are now, and where they want to be in the future- both collectively and personally.

All of the visual cues in Passaggio relate to natural visual patterns that reflect time passing: the concentric ring patterns mimic growth rings in trees, and the columns’ ridges and grooves are reminiscent of eroded landmasses or different stratified geologic forms. The pavilion rings overhead are a way to examine the potential, to look up to the sky as an intangible place and as a possibility for the mapping of what is yet to come. In the two thermoplastic ring groupings on the trail, viewers have the opportunity to trace their history as in a record, and the things that have happened that can be tangibly mapped out through time in a visual representation that can be experienced physically through circumambulation.

Passaggio can serve the city as a new place of cultural growth and reflection, as a means of cultivating conversation, and as a record of the rich history and developing future of Westfield.

About the artist:
Churubusco, Indiana is just like it sounds: a little town with two stoplights. It’s where Herron School of Art and Design alumni Katey Bonar grew up. “I was attracted to art because of the freedom it fostered,” she said. “You always had so many choices about what you wanted to do and you could mostly direct your own path as far as what you would be working on. I was all about that.” She started out “at a small, private school my first year in college,” but then “transferred to Herron for financial reasons,” she said. “Coming into this school after taking my foundations at another program was a little scary, but I found it to be a very welcoming place and felt at home right away. I can’t believe how great the school is,” Bonar added. “I wouldn’t trade that transfer for any amount of money. I ended up exactly where I needed to be and feel like I have really grown in the sculpture program.”

For the Passaggio sculpture, she was commissioned to create for the city of Westfield through Herron’s Basile Center for Art, Design, and Public Life.  Bonar affirmed that “it was really important for the city that its history be acknowledged.” She wanted to “create something that bridged their rich past to the future they are creating.”

“Presenting proposals for commission is always really exciting for me,” she noted. “I definitely enjoy putting forth a concept and being able to explain my thought process and inspiration as it relates to a space or idea that the client is very involved in.”

The sculpture is made of three, 13′ columns a skeleton of steel tubing with a skin of fiberglass covered polyurethane foam. Inside the columns, concentric rings of steel tubing (the largest with a diameter of 10′) are suspended. Near the columns are two thermoplastic ring groupings that make up part of the trail that runs through the work.