From 1981 to 1989 I executed several major works in Southern California. The first project was to repurpose Industrial artifacts from a former U.S. Steel plant near downtown Los Angeles, creating seven site-specific sculptures for the Trammell Crow Company's Commerce Business Park there. The first piece, the "Solar Family," was cut out of a sixty-foot long tube/device previously used to test segments of the Alaska oil pipeline, which was produced at the plant. The large wheel-like element was included in "Sunhenge," the second of the four. My recycled, solar-aligned pieces and installations offer intentional, ironic counterpoints to the objects' original purposes. "Eye-Beam Sungate," included found I-beams and concrete finials from the old U.S. Steel entrance gate. Zambrano Sunwheel (1986) directs sunbeams into an earthwork chamber on the equinoxes.
Other architectural-scale sculpture commissions in the Los Angeles area, using traditional fabrication techniques, included the following: "Skylines," "Solar Wind Quintet," "North Star Windows," and "Star Kite." The last image is of "Pentecost," a temporary hanging sculpture for Santa Fe's Saint Francis Cathedral.
In recent years, I have accepted commissions for permanent, site-specific "Solar Shrines," aligned to celebrate the seasonal cycle and our place within it. Through their alignments with the sun, these installations may also commemorate or memorialize significant personal events and times for the collector, throughout the yearly solar cycle. Bronze earth castings mark the cardinal directions.
