Artist: Allan Winkler
Installed: 2000
Medium: Steel
KCMO’s One Percent for the Arts Program
Description: For the Marlborough Community Center project, Winkler collaborated with the project architect, Kirk Gastinger, to develop ideas befitting a community center. They agreed that Winkler should create imagery that would be uplifting and inspire a sense of fun, play and movement – all aspects of what goes on in a community center. With this in mind, Winkler used a plasma cutter (a torch-like system that uses gasses and electrical current) to cut story-like images into large pieces of steel. In this way, he created hand-drawn pictures in a permanent medium. After he created his images, he also decided where each of the steel images would go in the building. Some hang in the windows in the gym while others mark the restrooms. A couple are hidden in the rafters and one even found its way to be wrapped around one of the heating ducts – creating a veritable scavenger hunt of artworks throughout the building.
