Skills, Shorelines and Ships
2011

Rod Northcutt’s piece Skills, Shorelines, and Ships is a functional work of art. The work is a series of three sculptures made in the shapes of different kinds of boats with seating available for children and adults. The sculptures aim to tell the history of Wisconsin's expansion through the vessels that have traveled down the Fox River Trail over time: a Ho-Chunk canoe, a French guide boat, and a contemporary Great Lakes barge. Adults and children will be able to sit and play on the structures that embody the history of the Fox River waterways.

Interactive Immersion
2011

Arizona Sculptors, Stephen Fairfield and Patrick Marcus, are engineers by trade but bring their talent together to create thought provoking pieces of art. Similar style art pieces by Fairfield and Marcus are located in Roanoke, VA and Tucson, AZ.

Interactive Immersion creates a new media art environment that interacts with pedestrians and bike riders as they pass though the Walnut Street Tunnel on the Fox River Trail. Local fish and underwater plants crafted of stainless steel are backlit with LED lighting activated by motion sensors and controlled by a computer program.

Frog for Dinner
2009

Arizona sculptor Stephen Fairfield is experienced with waterfront displays of his work. He has had multiple works selected for the Urban Trees exhibits at the Port of
San Diego.

In this largest commission for the Life of the River public sculpture walk, Fairfield has envisioned a Sandhill Crane feeding at the water’s edge. The 14’ steel sculpture depicts the bird gracefully bending over to pluck up a frog for dinner.

A clear demonstration of the circle of life, Frog for Dinner’s graceful solidity reminds us of how fragile our ecosystems can be and serves as a monument to balance in our
lives and in the life of our River.

River Monolith
2009

Andy Kincaid is a student of art at Lawrence University. Working with the guidance of faculty member, Rob Neilson, Andy has created a play on maps, place, and the role o the river in our lives.

River Monolith is comprised of two stainless steel halves. Approached from the south, this sculpture appears fractured, cracked in two. From the north, one realizes
that the fracture is the river itself, as an aerial photo is bonded to the face of the sculpture and the actual river, seen through the halves of the piece, also serves as the its own representation on the map.

Rather than stating, “you are here”, River Monolith seems to ask us, “Where are you?” Are you on the east or the west? Does the river divide us from one another or is it where we come together?