EUPHONY:Anchorage International Airport

This project represents Carther's largest single piece yet undertaken. It consists of nine towers of glass, collectively adding up to 42 meters (130 feet) of in span and reaching to 8 meters (26feet) at its highest point. The series of panels are inspired by Alaska's immensely rugged landscape of glaciers and mountains.

What is you sense of the piece and how it relates to the site?

When you arrive you see the mountains, white caps. At one point the director of the airport invited me up to see how the piece would work with the building and site. He flew me up to "prove" to him that the piece would not block the view of the mountains. I maintained the piece was made in a way that would augment the physical presence and visual impact of the mountains on the airport. We did a mock up of the forms that delt with the way you look through and around the glass. It really fit with the natural visual environment. So the fit of the piece and the site was always a serious concern.

You come from a northern place, was there a relationship between the transparence of glass and ice that played out here?

There is some similarity to a piece I did previously in Yellow Knife, although that site was not mountainous there was more than enough ice. Most people approach both sites from the air and there is a interesting interplay between the large and small scale events in the landscape. As you fly over great slave lake the texture you see is very similar to the texture you see walking over the land. This concept was one that naturally transferred to Alaska. Added to that was the enormity of the glaciers mountains and ice bergs.

Land form references that are often present in your work is there something cartographic about your images?

Yes but only indirectly. I would find a straight interpretation too boring. I have always used a element of intentional ambiguity in almost everything I do. So while references to land forms or rivers are there its more of a cubist approach. You may be seeing something from above or head on.

Did Alaska bring and new influences to your work?

The culture of the tribes had an influence on the Alaska project. The coastal tribes in the area placed a great deal of importance on copper, using the metal for arrows, spear heads and gifts. Large copper rectangles called "Coppers" were presented to their chiefs as a tribute. It also speaks to a reverence for materials which I've tried to echo with my use of large copper sections in the piece . These coppers were quite large 2 foot square and beaten from native copper outcrops. For me these reflected some of the things Alaska has done well, there is a lot of natural wealth, mineral, physical and spiritual in Alaska and the challenge here is to be balanced in the approach. This is why I chose the term EUPHONY as title. There are a lot of different parts to this culture and space which can really work well together.

This piece has quite a number of elements what is for you the most important ?

The circular element is a section of the piece that grew in significance as the work progressed . It really represents the challenge of the technical in the Alaskan landscape. As the form developed the way it refers to the natural and industrial became apparent. There are all sorts of references can be drawn from the circle shape, earthmoving tires, pipelines, jet engines etc. All things on the mind of the people who live and work there. They need to strike a good balance, so far I think they they have.