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| Tile Art by Diana Kersey |
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In spring 2011, potter
Diana Kersey was commissioned by the City of San Antonio, TX, to create a
significant public art project. Diana needed to quickly create and install
original designs—400+ square foot worth of ceramic tiles—on two rebuilt bridges
leading into historic Brackenridge Park.
One bridge is now done;
everybody can drive by art! If
you're in SATX, drive over the Mulberry Bridge and look both ways. In
“Life-cycle of the Gulf Coast Toad," Diana uses the colorful toads to
alert kids to everyday wildlife, and to say that their vitality shows the
health of waterways in our shared environment.
Mulberry Street runs
through Brackenridge Park between Broadway and U.S. 281. Just southwest of
the bridge is the historic Brackenridge Golf Course, and on the
northwest, the model railroad runs by. On the southeast side, a senior center
is located, and the northeast side borders a great old park, referred
to simply as “Kiddie Park.”
While the 2nd bridge, on
Mill Race Street, is still being built, Diana is glazing and firing the rest of
her tiles. Diana’s golf motif links to and honors the adjacent municipal
course, “Old Brack,” that was designed by the premier course architect of the
1920s, A.W. Tillinghast. Her art matches the architecture of the clubhouse.
This bridge is scheduled to be completed in September 2011.
Where’s the
shooter? While all this hard-hat
and art-making activity is going on, filmmaker James Sanders of Standard
Definition is making a documentary, called Diana “Living A Potter’s
Dream.” James is shooting the
entire process while Diana explains, literally, how all the pieces fit
together: from pulling raw clay out of a box to adhering fired and glazed
jigsaw tiles onto the bridges’ guardrails.
James uses Diana’s
tile-making process as a narrative prism to reveal her visionary art.
Disarming, engaging dialogue with his camera reveals both Diana's intense focus
and her deep roots in a primordial tradition of humans consciously using clay
as meditative personal expression to connect with history, spirit, and earth’s
ecology.
James is raising funds to
finish his video with transitions, color corrections, titling, and original
music. Contact him directly at standarddefinition@att.net for more details. Also, ask about Diana's cool,
branded 5x7 Toad or Golf tiles that they're offering as an incentive to get the
doc done.
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