Norman Gardner comes to visit “Celebration” in Palo Alto
The sculptor, Norman Gardner, who lives full time in Boca Raton, Florida, visited the site of one of his monumental works, “Celebration,” during the summer of 2013 while visiting his daughters in California. He wanted to inspect the state of the sculpture and the surrounding landscaping.
The stainless steel sculpture appeared to be in perfect condition and the landscape plantings of the surrounding area had grown in around the base of the sculpture beautifully, providing a luxuriant blanket of colors for the setting of a sculpture depicting humans playing. Although marine-grade stainless steel is extremely difficult to work with because it is a very hard metal, the advantage is that it withstands weather very well and does not rust. For this reason, Gardner has grown very enamored of working with stainless steel for the strength of the metal and durability of its finish, especially for monumental works, like Celebration, that will be subjected to the weather.
A bit about “Celebration”
Parents at the Gideon Hausner day school commissioned the artist, Norman Gardner, to produce a monumental sculpture to stand as a public landmark identifying the entrance to the school. The artist agreed to donate his time and talents and the school administrators agreed that the artist’s family (who were members of the school community) could get quotes on the costs to produce the sculpture and using those, raise funds from the broader school community to cover all of the direct, out-of-pocket costs for producing the sculpture. The sculpture project was given the go ahead and launched in the fall of 2005, with the artist’s daughter, Valerie, serving as the liaison between the school leadership and the artist. Unfortunately, the school initiated a capital campaign just before the fabrication was started and requested that the Gardner family not seek to raise capital to cover the costs of the sculpture from the school community as the same time. Despite that setback, Gardner was able to complete his work with the financial support of his daughter and her family, and Celebration was installed on loan from the Gardner family in May of 2006. You can see step-by-step photos of the creation of Celebration on the Work-in-Process page.