A Museum Without Walls

...a museum without walls inding along the waterfront Instead, the Odette Sculpture Park is metric shapes of Windsor’s own parkland of Windsor, Ontario, unified by its difference and the rich- Joseph DeAngelis. Canada’s southernmost urban centre, ness of its multi-textured variety. It is a strange balance, a sort of the Odette Sculpture Park locates itself A visitor on this path is continually converging divergence that shows so as a point of physical, political and presented with the infinite complexity much difference only to suggest that philosophical intersection. of our shared human experience. perhaps we are all, in some small way, This is contemporary sculpture on We see work from very different connected. the border. It is a meeting place for places and people: the naturalistic The Odette Sculpture Park is made expression, an environment where power of Pauta Saila’s Dancing Bear possible by the generosity of the P&L work from Canada and across the meets the industrially inspired work of Odette Foundation. The Park is world combines and contrasts. Sorel Etrog; the fluid human form of located along Riverside Drive West The collection purposely does not Dame Elisabeth Frink’s Flying Men is between the Ambassador Bridge and conform to any one artistic vision. juxtaposed with the weighted geo- Church Street. Open dawn to dusk. Lloyd Burridge, Commissioner Department of Parks & Recreation, 2450 McDougall Street, Windsor, Ontario N8X 3N6 Canada Telephone: 519-253-2300 • Toll Free: 888-519-3333 www.windsorsculpturepark.com Toni Putnam 1. Trees Normandy, France, commemorating the Sorel Etrog Etrog’s sculpture probes the relation- featured prominently in several impor- The King and Queen Toni Putnam was born in Boston and “Creation is mysterious,” says Toni 50th anniversary of the liberation by painted steel ship between man and machinery and tant public and private collections. studied at the University of Rochester, Putnam. “I thoroughly enjoy the inter- Canadian forces. In 1967, Etrog was 10’ high attempts to illustrate an expressive Pauta Saila continues to live and work in l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Fountainbleu, action between what I think is going to commissioned by Expo in Montreal to intersection between the individual and Cape Dorset, Baffin Island, Nunavut. France and the Atlanta School of Art. happen and what actually happens.” create two large sculptures for the industrialism. The machinery of the In 1971 she co-founded the Tallix Art Putnam is intensely interested in the World’s Fair, and in 1968 he was asked manufacturer become the tools of the 3. Dancing Bear Foundry in Beacon, New York where she tactile elements of sculpture, the true to create the small statuettes which artist. Steel plating, sheet metal, bolts, The massive arctic polar bear, distilled to was a principal for fourteen years. Dur- “feeling” of a piece that can only be would serve as the Canadian Film rivets and hinges are prominently the base elements of its raw strength and ing this time she explored and refined achieved through touch. Each one of Awards. Though these awards are now featured in this work, illustrating intricate balance, is Pauta Saila’s most the innovative welding techniques for these trees has been carefully cultivated. more famously known as “The Genies,” contact, tension and articulation. In our recognizable subject. The piece shows a sheet copper, which have now become Using welding techniques which are they were originally called “Etrogs.” city this theme extends, great respect for the beauty and power of her trademark. uniquely her own, Putnam focuses Throughout his long career Etrog has stressing perhaps that all nature’s art. The shape of Dancing Bear She has sustained a long time interest intense heat as a force of uncontrollable been closely associated with many of the work is at some level artistic. represents one human’s imagination in the copper medium and become an change. In this heat each tree “grows” in twentieth century’s greatest thinkers and The King and Queen was trying to understand or hold on to the expert patinator. She has exhibited its own way. Red, green and brown are artists. constructed in incredible energy of the natural world. extensively in the eastern United States contained in each piece of metal. Trees Windsor at Rather than attempt to render the bear and presented her work internationally is a hands-on sculpture. The viewer is DeMonte realistically, Saila’s work sees the animal’s in Tuscany, Italy and New Delhi, India. invited to reach out and feel the unique Sorel Etrog Fabrication movement in a more simplified fluid In 1996, Toni Putnam was elected as a textures and surface of each work. Space Plough II Inc. form. Balance is emphasized again. painted steel Fellow of the National Sculpture Society 17’ wide x 8’ high Dancing Bear has already become a of America. Sorel Etrog beloved Windsor landmark, and one of Arguably the most critically celebrated the favourite stops on any walk through Canadian sculptor alive today, Sorel the Park. Etrog’s impressive and multi- Though the team at DeMonte is faceted career has but simple steel construction, a basic usually occupied with projects for the spanned more triangular shape and is painted in that construction or automotive industries, Pauta Saila Toni Putnam than forty recognizable cautionary orange of heavy- Etrog himself observed that their skill Dancing Bear Trees bronze with selected patina welded copper duty industrial machinery. Etrog’s with his piece was “as good as anywhere 8’ high 5 pieces, trademark central hinge is also promi- I have ever worked in the world.” The 4’ to 7’5” high nently featured. King and Queen can be seen as the At first glance the piece might look crowning piece for the Odette Sculpture like something left behind by a road Park simply because it speaks so directly years. In that time he has been prolific He has collaborated with distinguished crew. “Is this just a plough?” a viewer to our city’s industrial experience, our as a sculptor, a painter, an illustrator, a international literary figures Samuel might wonder. It is a justified first faith in craftsmanship, and our belief poet and a filmmaker. His work has Beckett, and Eugene Ionesco and also impression. that we are all able to bend, shape and been displayed at major international maintained a close working relationship But Etrog makes us reconsider. The connect the materials of our daily galleries around the world from Israel to with Canada’s famed communication piece asks for a different set of questions lives into works of lasting Singapore, and from India to Switzer- theorist Marshall McLuhan. In 1995 with a different sort of emphasis: Is this expression. land. In North America his position is Etrog was named a member of the just a plough? Or, can a plough be art? secure in many of the most prestigious Order of Canada and in 1996 was These tools we have made and used with Pauta Saila private and public collections, including appointed Chevalier of Arts and Letters such great practical success during this Pauta Saila was born in 1916 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum by the Government of France. century — do they speak for us? Is this in a small camp on south and the Museum of Modern Art in New our art? Baffin Island in the North- York City, as well as the National Gallery 2. Space Plough II west Territories. of Canada in Ottawa and Le Musée des Space Plough II provides a good 4. The King and Queen In 1967 he was chosen to Beaux Arts in Montreal. representation of Sorel Etrog’s famous In many ways the addition of Sorel represent Canadian Inuit Sculpture For decades Etrog’s sculpture has fascination with the industrial themes of Etrog’s The King and Queen into the at the International Sculpture played an important role in the develop- the twentieth century. The piece asks Odette Sculpture Park marks a true Symposium and also participated in ment of the Canadian arts. In 1988, he for a reconsideration. It asks the viewer moment of “coronation” for the city’s the Eskimo Sculpture exhibit at the was commissioned to represent Canada to try bringing machinery into the waterfront collection. The work of this Winnipeg Art Gallery. Following these with a sculpture for the Summer museum, to see that even the most Romanian born artist speaks very two historic showings, Saila has been Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. utilitarian objects of our creation also specifically to our city, reflecting passions recognized as one of the elders of Inuit In 1994, the Government of Canada have at least some artistic and expressive and ideas which are very close to home art. His work has been presented in donated the sculpture Sunbird to component. Space Plough II has a strong for many of us. hundreds of exhibitions and he is The Odette Sculpture Park ...a museum without walls Stephen Cruise The ringing of a dinner bell award is The Rabin International 7. Union Six Embassies in Tokyo and Mexico City as Stephen Cruise was born in Montreal in meant it was time to put Presentation Sculpture, Los Angeles, In Watson’s fluid sculpture the viewer is well as several sculptures for courthouses, 1949. He has traveled around the world down work and return home 1996. He is a member of the Royal presented with evolving forms through hospitals, synagogues and estates in the and lived for extended periods of time in for a meal. In a very Joe Rosenthal Canadian Academy and the Ontario various stages of organic development. Toronto area. Consolation Seoul, South Korea and Tokyo, Japan.

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