JPC/A                                               Interiors  / Architecture / Contact

Threshold


Proposal for a Gallery Installation
St. Paul, Minnesota, 2019





Of the countless benefits of spirituality, perhaps its most significant is that of a metaphysical ordering system. It helps us to reduce the entropy of our lives, and frames our existence in relation to those who have come before use, those among us, and those who will follow us.




Spirituality brings sense to what appears senseless, placing our struggles in the context of a larger community. We are liberated to prioritize the events of our beings in relation to a cosmic structure infinitely larger than we.




In its literal form, a threshold is a strip of resilient material at the base of a doorway, which protects the interior finishings from the elements of the outside world. It helps to preserve the order of intimate space without creating a physical barrier.




More broadly, a threshold is a marker of transition, a denotation of change. It symbolizes the passage from one space to another; from exterior to interior, from darkness to light, from secular to spiritual, from the mundane to the sacred. It is a silent proclamation that, from this point forward, things will not be the same as from whence one came.




My proposal presents primarily a tumultuously undulating canvas, painted in a rich gradient from black to white, curving along the south and west walls of the lobby. This surface is articulated by a series of bronze fins, spaced at regular intervals, which in an instant expand to create a portal that fully punctures the canvas, forming an articulated passage to the spaces beyond. Not only do the fins provide a subtle ritualistic rhythm to movement through the space, but they also serve to register the undulations of the canvas, giving order to something that appears completely chaotic.