May 16, 2004

Urban Nature
Trees Branch Out in Myriad Interpretations

By ROBERT L. PINCUS

It's landscaping of an unnatural sort. More specifically, of an aesthetic variety. The motif is "Urban Trees." Thirty artists have created them and they will continue to line the North Embarcadero through Nov. 13.

For prospective artists, the parameters were as follows: to incorporate a 12-foot-high pole, six inches in diameter, into a design. (Each work also has a 48-inch-square concrete planter for a base.) The Port of San Diego, which oversaw this project, received 107 proposals, from which the 30 were selected.

The emphasis is clearly on whimsy. Big themes or challenging forms are mostly out. Cheeriness is the goal for Doug Snider and Linda Joanou with "The Happy Tree." Instead of leaves it sports brightly colored faces and fish.

The title alone of "Copperclad Wingy Dingy" tells you the artist works in a lighthearted mode. His concoction consists of a tower of copper tubing with copper foil pinwheels.

A few artists make arresting use of the tree form. In his "Urban Tree, 2028," Lester Wiese has attached a platform on his pole and atop it sits a jester figure. In his artist statement for the sculpture, he envisions a foreboding futuristic scenario to go along with it: "Social disorder, environmental deterioration and competition for space in the year 2028 have forced the individual to seek sanctuary in a private place." A treehouse is surely one answer.

In this city's balmy climate, the use of light-absorbing and reflecting materials exert a strong pull. Several artists embrace them, though none as dramatically as Christopher Lee, one of San Diego's venerable sculptors and public artists. His "Tap Root and Growth" is a sort of centerpiece of the outdoor exhibition. It reaches higher than other "trees" – apparently, he was given a pass on the standard dimensions – with its spindly wood form rising from a polished aluminum pole and stacked forms in glass. It also stands at the most prominent locale along the waterfront walkway, in front of the Cruise Ship Terminal.

"Urban Trees" is a long exhibition, quite literally. It stretches from Broadway to Grape Street.

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Photo by John Gibbins
The waterfront "Urban Trees" show includes Betsy Kopshina Schulz and Hans Tegebo's "Surfboard Cedar Survivor" and Lester Wiese's "Urban Tree, 2028."