 of the Maine General Mechanics Association. Also, I've noticed Mechanics Hall. And we are delighted that you are here this evening. This is one in a series of lectures that we do featuring people who make things, makers, and brought us a sense of the word in our general area. And we've been doing them pretty much every month, not quite, but more or less. And we are just delighted that you're coming and doing one of our lecture scores. There are a couple of upcoming things that I wanted to remind you of. We have coming on the 10th of October, not to a makers at the Hall lecture, but at a larger fundraising lecture, Earl Shuddleworth. And those of you who haven't learned about Earl Shuddleworth yet, he is the sort of guru of historic preservation in the state of Maine. He was for many years the commissioner of historic preservation at the state level. He has since high school been deeply engaged in the historic preservation. And he is also blessed with an encyclopedic memory, instead of who say the oral, to Earl. So Earl, what is the story on 41 Spring Street in Bowden Dam? He'll say, that was built in 1835 by Samuel So-and-So. And he's just like, how do you see that? But anyway, he is doing a special lecture for us on Thomas Sparrow, who is the architect was, the architect for this building. And he built several other, he designed several other major buildings, important, but nothing has been written down. So Earl took that on as a challenge. And he is doing a talk on Thomas Sparrow, plus the building of this building, plus the organization that built it in Y. And that's going to be, again, Wednesday, the 10th lecture itself will get set up here in the hall. Our next maker in the hall will be in November. And that's David Wallace. David Wallace Marina, now the recent working builder. He is also the person who maintains the city, the city's municipal working in city hall. And he builds and repairs organs all over the world. And so he is going to be here in the hall. Yeah, what is it on October 31st? What is that? October 31st is Halloween. Right. And we decided, Halloween was not the best time for a maker's lecture. And so instead of the makers of the hall lecture, we are going to be having what's called a maker's mix. And the maker's mix is an invitation to anyone who self-describes as a maker, or anyone who wants to come anyway. And we will have a party basically in the library. And they're sort of parties where we're going to provide a lifetime of people to be able to talk a little bit about what they make and why. But it's the very informed way. It's more of a party. It's definitely not a wedding. And that party will be followed by a concert up here to sort of tag in to the party. So that's some of the programs that we're doing. I encourage you to go to our website if you ever want to know more about what our activities are, or if you sign up here, or if you become a member, feel a lot of that and then tell you what our activities are. But tonight is Pandora, and it gives me great pleasure to introduce Pandora, the case whom I've had the pleasure to know goes quite a lot, actually. And Pandora is a sculptor. She's been a teacher also. It met that end at USM, right? And somewhere along the line, she began sculpting with lights. And so I'm very curious to know tonight, how did this happen? And how did it come about? And it is now a major part of our community. I was talking to someone in the audience earlier about that. Now, we all love the lights. We love the lights. Those are our lights. If the lights didn't go up, we would all be extremely sad. So how did that all happen? Pandora. Thank you all for coming. Thank you, Pam. Thanks to the main charitable mechanics association for inviting me. I thought I would sort of start out answering that question and then go from there. So the first park that I created my light form installations in was Tommy's Park. And I started doing that in 1998. And the story goes that I was, at that point in time, I did a lot of children's workshops. I was part of a touring artist program. And the director, and the assistant director of the Portland Downtown District, that's what it was called back then. Now it's Portland Downtown. They sponsored this workshop at the library. And so I was there doing the workshop and Susan Cooper came up to me and she said, you know, we really, we're thinking about doing something in Tommy's Park. It's so dark. And then we went to, do you know anybody that works in light? And I said, well, I will ask around. And then later in the day, she came to me. She goes, well, do you think you can do something? And I said, why not? So that was my introduction to Portland Downtown and my introduction to doing site-specific works around the city. I am a sculptor by profession or by schooling and I studied undergraduate work at Orino and then went on to get my Master's of Fine Arts degree at the University of Penn, along with my two children and my husband who was an engineer at the time. But when, and so I wanted to give you a little bit of, so what I wanted to do was answer that question but then also answer the question that a lot of people ask me is, what did you do before? So I thought I threw in a few slides and that's Tommy's Park too. And I'll get back to Tommy's Park and talk more about Tommy's Park because it's when I first really started doing these public art site-specific in the space. But I thought I would give you a little couple slides to show you what I was working on before I started doing light and I generally from the very beginning start was very interested in working in multimedia so I would work mixed media so I would combine different types of materials in my pieces and I not only combined but I also was very interested in the connection so I fabricated and turned on the metal lathe all my fasteners that I used in my pieces too. So this piece was a carving and each element was carved separately and it's an exploration of metal and wood and plexiglass. Plexiglass being the fluid, wood being the organic warm and the metal being the cool and hard. So those were the elements that I was thinking of. But again it's three-dimensional and so you have to think about space, the negative space all around it and so those are all the things that I thought about in creating these types of pieces. And it's a similar idea with carving and plexiglass and actually the metal is aluminum. And when I moved back to Maine I started applying to, well I got commissioned to do some percent for art pieces. I don't know if you're familiar with that but any public building or school that is using public money built with public money, one percent goes to art so they invite artists so they have competitions and I got a few commissions doing a percent for art pieces in schools. And again I started doing installations right off at that point which means that I looked at the space, I went and photographed the space or if it wasn't built yet I looked at the drawings. I made models and created the piece for the space. So this is the model of the piece and this is the actual piece. And this one was done at a school up in Gray New Gloucester. No, not Gray New Gloucester. McCusick School up in, oh God I don't remember now, up north. I'll remember later. And a Guilford. And so when I went, so we were sort of interviewed at that time frame, they chose four artists to interview and when they interviewed I went up there it was an evening by the time I left there was a moon. There was a full moon that came out and it was one of the largest moons in the century. And so I at that point knew that I would do my theme around the full moon. But it was an elementary school too so I wanted to be very playful with this. So this moon, the title of this is when the moon dressed up the bird's fold suit. So and that's still there. So I've done a few of those around the state of Maine. So we get so right after, so Tommy Spock with my first one and then PD, so the Portland downtown district started asking me to do different sites within the city. And the next one was Longfellow Square. And the difference between the two squares, they both get wrapped and I only do three areas where I wrap all the trees. And this is one of the areas that I wrap the trees and then put the forms within. And this one, as well as Tommy Spock and Longfellow Square has sort of changed through the, not the piece, but the actual square has changed through the years. But this one was, this piece is at a major intersection. This installation is at a major intersection. And some of my thoughts about what I do in the space is what the space itself, how you walk through the space, how people walk through the space, where it's located and what's around it, all the elements that make up this space, which this one, one of the major elements was not only the statue, but the trees. And the trees are different than Tommy's. They're much more, they're much shorter. They have more branching. They, and so all those different things come into play when I'm thinking about how I want this to be. So for me, this place was an intimate space and the trees are very close to you. So the branching really made a difference what I, how much light I put on it and the branching and what the forms are. And then PD wanted to do the following year. They wanted to do all the street poles along the street, but not all of them. We did, we did us, you know, five or six one year and we, now they're just about all, there's about 40 poles. But when they did that, when, when Barbara Hager asked me to do the street lights, I also went to the main college of art. Roger Gilmour was the president at that point. And I said, well, PD is doing, we're doing some stuff all along the street, the Congress street corridor. It might be nice. Would you like me to present a proposal to do Mecca, the building. And so this is what, this is the original drawing I gave him to, to do it. My proposal was to come from the roof to go to the canopy and have these forms just sort of spill onto the canopy. And so, and that's installing it. So installing it, the canopy has a, so the building is a historical building also. So I was very, I'm very considerate of my spaces. And this one in particular, I do not attach anything to this building with brackets or I mean with fasteners or anything. Everything is sandbagged, the scaffold, this is actually an early picture. The scaffolding on the roof has changed a little bit. It's much more complex. But none of it is actually bolted anywhere. And the rooftop structure on top is can't to leave it over just a little bit and goes back. And sometimes we tether that, but it doesn't have to be tethered either. So this is all constructed in that kind of way. We bring everything up to the canopy and someone's on the roof and it gets pulled up to the roof and then is attached up there. And so that is the newer version. This is the first place to, I think this is the first place where I started connecting my work with computers, with PLCs and programming. And this one, the main college of art has two different nights. So one night it's blue and white and the next night it's red, gold and white. And then they alternate each night. I very rarely make quick changes in color. I usually do night to night. So this one, I have a few pitches of this because there are people that take pitches and they send them to me and I think that some of them are really nice. They show the colors. And this one you can really get a sense in that they, these are all threaded on aircraft cable, these forms, the cable goes right up through them. And so they can turn a little bit. They don't turn all the way around but they have a little movement to them. So Boothby Square, this square has changed a little bit but I think I've been there since 2001. So when they asked me, and this is also through Portland Downtown District, when they asked me to do this square, it has an axis of east-west and the entrance on the west and the east, they narrow as you come and go but in the middle it expands. And there's two planters, I'm sure you're all familiar with it. There's two planting areas and I chose the two planting areas. I wanted and I chose and I wanted pieces that were up high but there's no trees here and the buildings are different sizes and there are a lot of openings. So with this piece I decided that I wanted to use, I would put the forms up on poles. And so the poles are around 10 feet tall and then the pieces themselves go another eight feet up. But I also wanted, I wanted some gesture from these pieces. And so what I did was, I, you know, you sort of relate to your body with this piece, you know, you have the bottom, the middle and the top and I made them so that they gested so that each piece not only moves in different directions, each section, there are eight sections, three on the west, five on the east coming in. And each section, each three forms has its own gesture and they're all, all the forms are all different too so they react to each other. So the negative space, so you can see how there's negative space and everywhere you walk around that negative space sort of comes together and expands. So it's a different view everywhere you go in that. So, and so these are the mechanics of it. I just thought I'd throw these in so you can see how everything is thought of and the weight is calculated too so that as you're moving, as they're moving back and forth, how the forms relate, but also the angles that we need to adjust. And we also, for this one, we also designed the housing for the electrical instead of in the beginning, they were all plugged into, I had to run wire and plug it into the outlets on the side. So a few years back when they were redesigning the square again, we talked to the city electrician and we said we'd like to present to you some housing so that we can actually bring all the electricity up the poles and nothing's ever seen and it's all protected. So this was the drawing for that. And that's another view of that. So you can see how they sort of move from each side. And when I changed to LEDs, it really changed the way you kind of saw the lights, the forms. Sometimes they look like they're in front of each other, but they're not. So they change, they're constantly shifting positions visually. And there's another one that someone sent me looking up. And then the friends of Dearing Oaks asked me to start doing some work for them. And this is our first installation. So we do all the designing, the fabricating, the installing and the takedown and all the maintenance for most of the Portland downtowns and a lot of other groups. And this is the first year of Dearing Oaks. I just used one, a couple of different trees and created this disc shape, which is still there. This one I started doing in, moving right along here, 2002. So this was the first time I did this. And so what I did was I decided to use one color on the form and then highlight the trees with another color using gels. It was kind of a bulky way to do it. So the next year, the next year we added more forms and with Dearing Oaks, it's a big park with very big, beautiful trees. And I just think of these trees as very majestic trees. And so what, and so this picture is just to show you that we are out there in the winter too. It gets very cold. But you can see these trees, these trees are massive. They've been there for a long time. Some are heritage trees. And, but they're all throughout the park. So what I wanted to do was I wanted to create a moment or a place. And so the perfect spot was the pond. The pond is there. There's all these trees around the pond and it gives a sense of place. So we chose the pond to do the installation. And then I picked, now we have six trees around the pond. And we, so they encompass the pond as you go around, but you can never get a picture of the whole pond with the lights in. It's another hard thing to do. So this is the last reiteration. It's gone through a few different forms. You know, sometimes I don't like a form that I've done. So I change it. You know, and I have a lot of freedom that way. It costs me a little money sometimes. But if I don't like it, I can't see, I can't keep it up there. So I've come up with these and I like these forms. But this park is also, it is also has a PLC and each tree has its own PLC computer and it's all programmed and they're synced. You know, they're synced or they're timed. They're all sort of synced in timing. And I have two different color lights on each form. I have two different color. So this disc shapes have white and blue. The oblong shape has red and green because I'll never use red and green together. And then the yellow, the spheres have gold and purple. So it is programmed for seven days and each night is a different scenario using those six colors. So in the beginning when I first did it, people would come up to me and say, look, I have a bet with my wife. I'm telling her it's this color, this color. And I go, and she's saying it's this color. And I go, and you're both right. So now, but the idea for this one, I didn't, it was not a place where I would wrap trees. And the idea is that you glimpse the trees by the light from the forms projecting on it so that you're seeing these floating forms all around the park, all around the pond, but you also get a glimpse of these limbs that they're attached to. So you get to see these large oak trees in the dead of winter and the dead of night. And I really love these trees. And here's another, there's another color scheme. So that's another night. And I'm very limited with my colors and LEDs too. So I have to really make the most of it. And in the background, you can see the candelabra tree. You can see, oh, I'm pointing back there. You can just see a glimpse of the candelabra tree, which is the, it's a 100 year old tree. But I guess it's not the oldest. I guess the oldest is a 200 year tree. Yeah. But it's a 100 years old. And this came about, it's still through the Friends of the Deering Oaks. They sponsor it. But a gentleman came to Deering Oaks or Ann Pringle and said that he would like to donate an installation. And he would like to use this tree. I think he would like to, he wanted to use this tree for a birthday present for his wife. And so, and so, and so this tree, the nickname, it's a large pinout tree, but the nickname is the candelabra tree. And it has these amazing, as you can see, it has these amazing horizontal limbs. And they're huge limbs, you know. And then they have some that are a little more upright. So I guess that's how it got its name. You know, the idea of this, you know, tree and the way the limbs are circling around it. But I wanted to play with that, I wanted to play with that idea. And so, but I didn't want to wrap it, but I wanted to highlight the linear and curvilinear aspect of these branches. And then I hung sort of shapes that I think look like flames, you know. So, and so that's how I came up with that one. That idea. It's a single tree too. It's in the rose, it's in the rose. So it's a single tree there. And then these are the forms that I first did for Congress Square Park. And this is also done with, it's sponsored by Portland Downtown District. And this is the first time that, if you can see some of these forms, that blue one in the middle up there, it's this huge disc, but it's asymmetrical, which means that a lot of my forms are stopped from a center and then they radiate out symmetrically. So each line that comes out is the same all the way around. But these forms, there's a couple in there, are not. They're asymmetrical, so that they move in a different way, you know, they're, and my son helped me work out the formula for these because each wire, and I'm gonna show you pictures of how I make these, each wire is cut at a different length and bent at a different part. So there's probably, I don't know, 20, at least 20 wires that go around that one blue form. And that forms, it's about six feet. It's about six feet wide. And so then there's a couple others that do it. And it's the first time I also put forms within forms, which are really very difficult to string with lights. You know, it's a challenge. So you learn through that how you have to make them so that you can get your hands in there. But these forms are no longer there, but they are somewhere. But, oh, and this shows you that I started doing private residences too. And sometimes I get a gig where I actually go there to actually do some of the work and then install it on site. So this was a nice place that I did in Casco Bay and got to stay out there for a while, which was perfect for me. And then this is what it looks like. It also is computerized, but I don't have pictures of all the different colors. Well, I have one other one, I guess. This place now has the color scheme of blue and white. So they do change. And then I went to Texas and stayed there for a couple of weeks doing an installation down there. And that you can hardly see in there. But it's a big, again, it's a big, it's a big, I forget what kind of tree it is, but it's an ancient, ancient tree and some of the limbs are actually on the ground growing. So it was like a ranch house that we got to stay at. So it's very nice. And I'm thinking it needs to be pairs this year. So, and then, so the next thing this is still, we're still on, this is also Poland downtown. It's been very fortunate to do a lot of work in Poland downtown. And also it's where I explore lots of different new things. So it's a very, I have a lot of freedom in what I do. And so this is the, so Poland downtown wanted to do the commercial street corridor. And I had a really hard time with this one. I don't know if you guys probably all know commercial street. It's a visually busy street. It's got light poles everywhere, wires everywhere. The street is wide. So the connection between buildings to buildings is harder. And the sidewalks and so finally I, and a lot of times I think of things in my mind. So I go down, I usually go down and take pictures of wherever I do an installation. And then of all different aspects of it. And sometimes I go two or three times and walk in the space. And so finally I figured out that the real thing about the consistent element that really talks about commercial street was the buildings. They're row after row of these brick buildings. And they are, some of them are very old, some of them are very new. But they have these great facades. And who doesn't like a good facade? But so I thought of doing a theme using the facades of the buildings and putting them up high. But the problem with that was they're all privately owned. So I think it was Jan Beitzer at the time. She contacted some of the building owners down on commercial street and three of them. And so the deal was that would they like to be part, would they like their building to be part of the commercial street installation? And so three owners came forward right off and then we did the parking garage, which is publicly owned. So we had four buildings right in the beginning. And the theme on this, and commercial street is also unique in the sense that it borders the ocean. So it's our ocean front. So I wanted to sort of do play around with that idea of the ocean front. And so I came up with the, I came up with the sphere and the orb coming out of the building in, but a lot of them are half spheres. So they're not full spheres, although there are a few of them on there. So that, and now we've got, I think we've got 62 forms on seven buildings down there. So it's grown. And people who want to include their building generally have to pick up the initial cost of the installation and then the maintenance and ongoing install and takedown is done through. Portland downtown. It's now Portland downtown. And that's somebody who sent me this picture and I thought that was really neat. That's looking up. And I, this is the LL Beans. And when they asked me to do work, I was, I think I did work for them for about 10 years since 2005 and last year was the last year, the year before it was the last year. But it ended up, I did the whole campus up there and did sort of installations in different areas of the campus with different color themes. This year happened to be red, white and warm, red, warm, white and green. And then I ended up doing that Christmas tree too. And I did that for many years. And one year it actually fell. And I said, no problem, I'll fix it, I don't put it up. So luckily I don't have anything to do with the structure of putting it up. I just put things on it. So they got it back up and I made it look okay for that year, it was kind of sad. And it's the first time that I've done things in water. So this is installing in water. And it's pretty cold and you do have to wear waders and things and your hands are always cold. And this is my daughter. She sacrificed herself one year for me. And that's what it looks like. So it's possible to do in water. Yeah, well, I've had other people in the end, you work, you do water, but we're not doing that one anymore. And so then Congress Square, the forms at Congress Square. So when the Friends Group at Congress Square, when they were formed, this was I think a couple years ago, 2014, they asked me to, they sponsored a re, looking at a redesign of Congress Square Park. And since then, the trees have really grown up quite a bit. And so I decided to use the trees and wrap the trees. And a lot of it had to do with this being a, the area of this space is really devoid of trees other than this park. There's not a lot of street trees here. And it also, the trees, in a way, people don't realize how many trees are really there, so by highlighting, especially in the winter time, so by highlighting, there are nine trees in this park. There's, so I have over 30 forms hanging in these trees. And some of the trees are really large, also. But anyway, it's the three parks that I do where I wrap the trees and hang forms. And then I alternate, I also alternate the color scheme each year. So each color, each year there's a color scheme. Sometimes the purple forms, sometimes the forms stay the same color for a few years because I don't restring them. And so you can see in the distance back there, there's these little dots. There's a red one, two reds and a white and you can't see the other one. Well, that's the PMA building. And so I actually don't have a picture of the PMA building by itself because they're way up there and they're really hard to take picture of. But the PMA building, so as I said, I do drawings. So when I actually do a lot of designing in my head but I do then sketch a little bit using drawings and then for the final presentation, I give them something like this so they can actually see what it might look like in the space. And these are actually discs, not orbs. So you can sort of see it there, they're flat. And they turn and these do turn a lot. So sometimes, and they turn separately. So sometimes they look like a sphere, you're seeing them straight on and sometimes they turn just a little bit so you can see part of it, just like, you know, the full moon. You never see all of it at once unless it's full. So, and this is installing it for the first time. Well, I don't know if it was the first time or not so we had to design some brackets that fit in those holes there. And I think I realized I was gonna do these holes right from the beginning. And they're also obviously computerized too because sometimes there's four of them. Sometimes they all can be red. Sometimes they all can be white. Sometimes one will be red, three will be white. So there's a program that will change them every night. How am I doing? Are you guys all awake still? So this was a proposal down for a, it's a temporary piece and it was at the Kendall Square in Cambridge. And it was a sort of industrial site also but they're trying to make, and it's the waterway, there's a lot of new buildings around there, a big biotech company, a big, you know, other things. And also, Cambridge is down there. So, but it had, it really was a big open space with a lot of sand in it and hardly anything. They had some furniture for eating and stuff like that. So I really, I didn't really see something that would be intimate and work with. So what I did was I created something that, I created something that was its own place. So that, and this is sort of the first time I've done something that's kind of functional. They're seating, you know, so it's seating. So it's its own place. It has its own, you know, sort of own little, it creates its own little setting and this is it here. And the base pieces are metal and then the wood seats are in between and it's sort of like a, and the base, so I was looking out my studio window one day and in the parking lot beyond me there was these jersey barriers, you know, and jersey barriers are just the ugliest things, but I like the idea that, I like the idea of the triangle shape, you know, and it serves its purpose. It's narrow at top and where you need it to have its strength, it's at the bottom. So that's where this shape came from, but I curved it and made it a little more elegant looking and then created these lights on the top of them and that's what it looks like on the side. So it was all that work for just a temporary installation. I was kind of hoping they would keep it there, but it didn't stay there, but it did find a home and it's up in Lewiston now and that's the setting for it at this point in time. And again, this is another drawing that I present, so I try to get the picture of the place. This is down at Leventhal Square, so I sort of branched out now going other places in Boston, which is a beautiful park and it has all the garages underneath it and it has huge trees all through it. I didn't want to use the trees. I didn't want to use hanging things from the trees in this park, but so I decided to do something on stands that was a little more playful in that sense and more immediate to people walking by. So these are the shapes and they're all sort of an organic shape based on the oval and the sphere and stuff. And these, and these, this is a nice, and I also did another piece, which I don't show the pictures of that. They have a big walking wooden abber and I have some forms in there too, so this was the second thing I did down there for them. And what's nice about this is that I create it, build it and I put it, install it first time and then they take care of it. They'll call me if they need anything, but they take it down and they put it up each year. So it's a nice relationship and that's them up close. And then this is Chestnut Hill, which I did a huge installation for them. They have five sites, and again they wanted all spheres and stuff and they wanted them to be all changing, they wanted changing colors too, but they never changed the colors. So there was two different schemes that they could use. They never changed the colors the last year. I said, well, if you're not gonna use them, let's simplify this whole thing. So we're slowly just doing one color scheme for them. And that's them hanging in their trees. And it's a mall down there, it's at the street. So they, but it's a mall where it's not inside, it's a walking, it's an outside mall, so that's why they wanted to do something like this. And this is up at Farnsworth. And so this is sort of the same kind of thing that I do at the, on Commercial Street. So I brought it up there. Okay, so now, so these next slides, I'm gonna show you the Tinkertoy design. So these are the materials that I would use for the smallest and the easiest of my form, which is the 18 inch sphere. So you can see, I have these collars. I call them collars on either end with the holes in them. I call them collars, I have them fabricated. And then they're welded onto a stainless steel rod. That's my internal, the centerpiece. And then, and that's the Tinkertoy idea. And then I use epoxy, am I in your gay guys way? I use epoxy and I put the epoxy in each separate hole going around and it doesn't, I use the 20 minute one so it doesn't set up too quickly here. And then I start bringing the spring wire. So all the wire I use is spring wire. It's what you make springs out of, it keeps its memory. And I can bend it and I can, you know, and then I can bend it, I can also make a tight bend. So some of those more complex forms are I actually use a bender to bend them. So that's basically how I create these forms. And you all work, you can, I'm gonna be building some pretty soon here, some new ones. And then these, so I started doing other kinds of shapes that don't come off the center. And some of these I have outsourced the fabrication of them. And this is the, and this is a permanent installation done on the J.B. Brown building on Danforth Street. And at the time, you know, so again, the shape of that one was sort of inspired by sailing. And it was the first time I've used something like that. And you can see how they come off the building. They billow out from it. And that, this is the picture, which is a hard picture to say, but they, I like them. It's the first time I also light with three schemes, two in one form. So there's a band of blue, a band of gold, and a band of white in that. And we do all, we design all the brackets that go on the buildings too. So, and these are the forms that go on the press hotel. I started doing these last year. Now the first year I did press hotel, I had these fan shapes and I did not like the fan shape. So I said, oh, well they wanted more. I said, well, let's look at a different shape. So I got, so I like the shape better. It works with the building a little bit more. Oops, sorry, how do I go back here? So these sort of, you'll see these this year. They sort of are curve, linear, and I have brackets, and I'm actually making new brackets for these. So they come off the building even more, sort of depicting sort of paper floating down the building, which I think goes with their theme much better than what I had before. And so this is sort of a new idea. It's not going anywhere yet, but just to show you my thinking and my thought process of, sometimes I'll just sort of think of things. And this is the basement of Renny's, and this is where everything is stored. And so these are the ones up front. These are the discs for Dearing Oaks. And you can see the pods back there in the spheres and then yonder. So I have a really big space. It used to be the old Woolworths Department's basement. Whoops, touchy. So and then these are some of the forms, the asymmetrical form, that big one that I showed you, you can see now it up close. And then there's another one, another one. And this is last year's installation at Lincoln Park, and you can see this is where those forms went. So I repurposed them. And the friends of Lincoln Park asked me last year if I would do an installation down there and they raised the money. And it was a little late in the year, but I knew I had some forms that I could use for this piece. And I've gotten them, got the forms, some have been made, but a lot of the forms from Congress Square came here. And it's a really historical park. And I wanted to use the trees in here again because the trees are, they're very large and they've been there forever, some of them. And but I wanted also to, I also wanted to, in all my work, I try to create these moments and sometimes moments of magic and sort of fun too. But I wanted to, I also wanted this one to be, have a little more quiet to it. And I wanted the, I used a light scheme. So every single shape in here is different and there's over 40 shapes, which include the inside ones. So I wanted to do a simple color scheme. I chose warm white and gold and I wanted it to have warps. So that's why I chose those. And I wanted them to be sort of like, the old-fashioned chandeliers hanging outside, type of thing, the funny forms. I had a young girl, not this, some of before this young child, her father brought her up to me. I was up in Congress Square and her father brought her up to me. And her father said, she goes, I said, my daughter has a question for you. And she said, she goes, you know, I really like what you're doing for Congress Square, your forms and stuff this year. She says, but I really miss the forms, the funny forms that were there before. And I said, well, I said, wait for this winter. I said, you'll see them again. So now they're down here. So that was, I thought, really cute. And here's my, here's, I like hanging out with the next generation of makers. So here they are, the grandchildren, working, working, working. And there, and that's the end. Let's come back to the beginning. Internship, yes, yes, yes. I didn't want to go that far. So I think we have time for questions and stuff. If anybody has any questions. Absolutely. I think anyone who has questions like why is Mr. Wreckett asking the director who don't need to run with the three? How do you secure the lights to the frame? I think I'm trying to... Wired ties. No. Yeah, one of you said they're not just wound and secure at the end, did you? Oh yeah, no, no, yeah. Yes, yes. And the first time I started doing it, I would do, so if I have a sphere, I would do the first strand, second strand, third strand. And I discovered that, when I first started, the lights, sometimes a whole strand would go out in the middle of the season. And then you have this weird looking shape. And so my daughter was home from college one summer and so obviously she worked for me. So she came up with the idea of a spiral. So the first strand spirals down and it's all connected with wire ties, those little black wire ties. And so we spiral down and then we connect and we spiral back up and connect. Is there one bit further, you've still got some coverage in the whole shape? You've got exactly, it's a little less light, but you still see the whole form, yeah. Some of these forms have, I don't use like 100 strands because it's too iffy. So I only use 50 lights on the strand and so some of these lights have 15 to 16 light strands on them, those big shapes. Because it's important to be able to get, to describe the, the lights, the form itself is made of the wire, but the lights when they're on describe the form. So you wanna make sure you have good coverage. Yeah. So you were saying that for instance the lights on main college of art have two colors that change each night. Are you programming the LEDs to change or do you have two sets of lights? Some have two sets of lights on them. So you're just turning one off and turning this. So the computer actually tells the light, tells which light's gonna be on, what color's gonna be on. So you actually just sort of switch one off. Two different strands, rather than the appropriate LED. Yeah, no, no, they do have that now, but it's cumbersome, it's a lot of components. It's a lot of components, you know, so it, you know, so. How many lights on a tree? On a tree? Yeah, on one of those. On one of those trees, between 90 and 100. Well, now that we use a, wrapped, just wrapped. Yeah, now that we have LEDs, we can do a lot more because they take a lot less energy, so we can do more. And the tree has grown. I use a 45 lift when we started. Now I use a 60-foot lift. They've really grown a lot. And the idea, so I wanna get back to the, I wanna just for a moment get back to Tommy's part because it was my first part. I chose, and I didn't have to choose the trees, but I noticed that in that space, that's a sort of a dot, it's a corner with two roads, roads going, you know, with two roads intersection. But it is, so it's sort of tucked in there and it can be really kind of dark. And the trees, the trees are lined up in a diagonal that goes through the park. But I noticed when people were walking, they walked through the park like this, you know, they never look up. You know, and I really, the spaces, the space is really vertical. You know, and I wanted to get that sense of moving you up, you know, moving you up to the height of the space because it has a lot of height. And so that's why I wrap the trees here. So that's, and the other thing I wanted to do is I wanted to get a sense of, I don't just wrap trees, I try to think about the tree and really if I'm doing trees together, the relationship of the trees together. So I think about which branches I wanna, I want to highlight because I want them to talk to each other, you know, and when they move in the wind, I want them to move with each other. So, so it's, you know, so Tommy's Park is the first one I ever did, but it's also the one we leave last every season to do. So it's sort of like, it's sort of like our special place. Where I learned a lot about this kind of, of site-specific designs. Hi. So I just wanna introduce myself, I'm Casey Gilbert, the Executive Director of Portland Downtown. So you've heard a lot about our organization. I don't have a question. I really just wanna say it's such a pleasure to work with you and you're such a jewel and a gem for the city. It was so lovely and blessed to have you. And I'm so happy to be here with you. I'm so happy to have you. I mean, you're a late dancer. Thank you, Casey. I've been working with you now for 30 or 40 years and just to understand and defer your legacy and to see your artistic vision. It's just so inspiring. And I just wish that there was an award and an honor that would be still on me. And I'll parade you around with me because I really think that this is so special. It makes Portland so special and you're just an inspiration to everyone. And we do have a secret park that's gonna be- We do have, I didn't mention it, did I? Thank you. You've got another surprise on the works, but I admire you so much and you've got such a wonderful and talented dance team. So I just wanna say thank you for continuing to work with Portland down to town and we're just so blessed to have you. And I can't wait to see the lights come on at the tree place. That's an awesome thing that I just, and I'm always in awe of being with you. Thank you. I actually wanna add on to that. When I first moved here and started doing these installations, I worked with a lot of city people and not only Portland downtown, but I worked with Jeff Talling, who is still here at the City Arborist. I still work with Kevin Thomas who heads up one of the public works department and many other electricians and people within the city. And for me it's been a real collaboration of being able to do what I do and create these things. So, and the other thing is, and to be embraced by the community has meant a lot and has enriched my work as well as my life. So I wanted to add that. Is there any other questions? Oh, I'm sorry. I was curious like how your process of creating the form going to a structure and choosing the spring wire and considering the lights and how to attach the lights, the weight of the lights, how many lights, you know, what that process looks like and how you came up with the airplane wire for aircraft cable. Well, it's very strong. So you can do it thin and strong at the same time. So when I first started, when I first started, I thought I would collapse the forms so that people could store them with the lights on them. So I designed them so that they would move and I cinched each wire onto these little connectors that would go around the rod and stuff. And after the first year, I said nobody's gonna collapse them and this was just way too much work. So then I had to come up with a system that there was always part of a center thing though. And so then I came up with a system like this. And the thing about it is that the calculation of, you know, understanding what my limitations are within a piece, you have to make, you have to describe a form with wire so that when you're putting lights on, it has, you can describe it. It doesn't lose its shape. So there are some forms. I had done some forms for Longfellow Square, some little angular forms. And I noticed that just by trial and error that it was really hard to capture that form the way I was doing it. So I have to sort of, it's just trial and error. I will take a wire and just bend it and see how it looks. And before I described the whole thing with the wire, so and I do a lot of drawings of the shapes I like and then continue on. So the spring wire was the only thing I could find that would have a memory and would keep its shape. Some of these forms are, well, you know, during Oaks was what I say in 2001. So those forms, that disc shape is still here. And some of the other forms are too. So it lasts for a long time. And everything that we do, well, my husband's an engineer and some of the structural stuff he develops for me. And he also does all my computer, my PLC. And then I've gone out to other structural firms too if I need to do certain things. But McMasterCar has a lot of stuff in it. You know, a lot of these little mechanisms and stuff and you can figure things out how to do it. I wanted to do stainless steel as much as possible because it lasts longer. The spring wire, I now found a source where I can get stainless spring wire before I couldn't get it. So most of the things had to be painted. But some of the ones like Leventhal, I'm not painting them. So it's just sort of trial and error through the years of what I like. I did it and I've done three places up in Brunswick and there's Juan Fassad and I did this form the first year and I thought, oh my God, it looks like a blob up there. So the next year I said, so I said, George, I'm gonna change your forms. You know, I didn't charge them but I didn't like them. I thought they were not successful. And so the next year I just didn't change them completely. I just bordered them thinking that that would give them a border. Still, I didn't like it still. And so I redid the whole thing the third year without charging anybody. But for me it's, I can't keep things up there that I think that I don't think are successful. So it's just, you learn as you go along and all the different ways that I attach things, it's about the simplest way possible, the strongest way possible and the least visual invasive as possible. So all my mechanisms are either, it's just like for earlier work, they have to be beautiful. Everything has to be beautiful that comes into the making of it. And what's the weight to form ratio as far as the lights to the form? Do you see what I mean? Are the lights heavier than the form or the form of light? You know what, you have to see that. The forms are very light. The forms are very light. They're about 25 pounds, 25 pounds. Put a little bit of lights on. It doesn't take, it doesn't weigh that much more. Maybe five pounds more. It depends on the size, the size of it. Are you, so I've noticed that they're different and from year to year in different squares, for instance. Is it, are the lights actually changing or are you putting all new forms in for instance Longfellow Square? No, each installation for basically, each installation has its own form. The only thing that changes, so everywhere in the city, Deering Oaks has always got those forms. Mecca always has what they have. What changes, the only things that change are maybe the color scheme because I've got different color lights on it. Or those three parks that I wrap the trees, those change. So those, that color scheme changes in those parks. So for instance in Longfellow Square, when it's a different color, you've actually put different lights on those that year or? Sometimes I do two years. So if I do gold one year with red and purple, then I can do gold again with green and white or something. So I try to keep it, because I try to keep the forms the same color. I didn't use to, I used to change every single year. And then I said, well, wait, I've got more to work with here. So now I'm changing just every two years to the forms. And one of the questions that, how does it determine the length? Because I don't even want them up a solid month longer than they are. Well, you can talk to Peter. Well, we keep them up in the winter, they're on the ones. So everybody, so everybody in the city sort of goes with the, what PD does as far as timeframe, even the private ones, the hotel and Mecca, you know, and I basically control it all for the most part. So, so basically everybody except for Deering Oak sometimes will be turned on a little bit later. And Linking Park, they want to be turned on a little later. But generally the day after Thanksgiving, I go around with a crew, sometimes just my husband and I, go around and plug everything in. Because nothing, you know, every street pole has to be plugged in separately. Some things don't, some things you could just turn on. But everything gets plugged in that day, the day after Thanksgiving. And then it's about three months, we get through the winter. So generally by Valentine's Day, the sun's here longer, the day lights longer. So between February 14th and March 16th, we pick a day. If there's lots of snow, you know, we keep it up. So it's on school. Because I feel like March, like late February, well into March at the time we need the lights. Yes, just before spring. Spring is nowhere near us. Well, sometimes there's no snow and it seems warm and stuff. So yeah, so we're flexible. Some seasons it's longer, some seasons. And yeah, and it depends. Sometimes I can't even get in if we've had a big storm. So it's hard to get into the ice. Also cold, it's temporary. Well, it's temporary, yeah. So there is sort of a cold in some areas, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, a lot of different questions. You've got a lot of copy dancers in 10 and a half. Oh, I do. I do outside of, in North Yamas. North Yamas, there's a lot of. And there's people in the neighborhood who are so popular around here. But a lot of times, like okay, there's a fire with lights there. It's kind of pretty obvious that there's a string of lights. But you've seen that somehow it gets, so it's not just, it's sort of, you know, distributed, we don't see that. It's not that distributed. Is there a way to describe how you do it? Yeah. Well, you're placing the lights around the form. Yeah, and then they make them not look like it's just. Yeah, no, no. Well, you just go within, so if they're large, you start with a spiral, and then you go, and then you can come back with a spiral, another spiral that goes in. But they get to be very even, the placement of the, unless they've been maintained, you know, redone a little bit, sometimes you have to sort of cross over. I don't really prefer crossovers. But sometimes crossovers work, you know, crossing over one wire or the other, because it's just distribution of the lights. I find that sometimes when you're putting the lights on, sometimes those little stupid lights want to line up in the same place. I don't get it, because then I put a little kink in it so it starts, but still, you know, it's all of a sudden starting again. So, yeah, so it's, you gotta try to keep the random, yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that answered, didn't I? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I just want to say one other thing, too, because remember one of my son and my brother, he, I was a lap and bow and they said that they would have, they were bringing the kids to Portland to see the lights. Oh, really? Yeah. They were coming here. Yeah, one more question? What brand of Christmas lights should we get? I suggest that last one is... Oh, God, I think they're getting worse and worse every year. They're made with diodes now, so they're not, yeah, they're not lasting quite as long. Yeah, I do, I have one source now, S4, that I use, but I used to use GKI, and there's lots of different ones out there that I get them wholesale. They all do? They all do, yeah, yeah. But I'm experimenting with other things. I need to get an R&D team together so I can.