Last week, I traveled to Lynnwood, Washington, from my home in Kamloops, British Columbia, to install “Make Your Mark” in Alderwood Middle School. What a trip it was.
Comprising 43 individual panels – quite a few of them irregularly shaped – it was of paramount importance that everything fit together as planned. In addition to fitting together properly, my placement of the piece had to use the space and its light conditions to display “Make Your Mark” to best advantage.
Above, an assistant helps me with the installation of the panels and their wall mounts. It’s great to have not only an extra set of hands, but an extra pair of eyes. We took special care to make sure the placement was perfect as it would have been quite a setback to discover that it was crooked or didn’t fit. Definitely a case of measuring three times and cutting once.
The entire process took the better part of three days, as every panel needed to be properly positioned and affixed at multiple points to ensure maximum safety and longevity. The panels were built with interlocking tabs and bottom brackets, in addition to the wall mounts, so they would neither shift side to side nor rock back and forth like separate picture frames, but instead function as a single structure once installed.
It was with no small amount of pride and gratitude that I was able to drive the last screw home, step back, and see “Make Your Mark” in its entirety. I couldn’t have been happier to see the fruition of many months and hundreds of hours of meticulous work. I was very happy with the positioning of the piece and how it fit into the space both physically and visually with the colours of the building’s interior.
I was somewhat surprised by the readability of many of the tiles even from the distance below. The multilevel aspect of the smaller tiles adds visual interest with the light coming through the south window and I added a red star for the Lynnwood location on a higher level on the map that really stands out with the shadows.
