For the past few weeks, we’ve been following the creation of a new piece of public art. The collaboration between Eugene Sargent, students in Springdale Public Schools and Cox Communications is now revealed. The unveiling of the 9-foot-tall Tree of Communication took place Nov. 12 at the Cox store on Joyce Boulevard in Fayetteville, with artists and supporters observing from a shopping center parking lot.
“If you’re with Springdale schools, a teacher or a kid or a student who’s been part of this, raise your hand. Family members also, who helped get them here?,” says Olin Ericksen.
Olin Ericksen with Cox Communications recapped how the sculpture developed in an effort to highlight a desire to redirect e-waste from the landfill. Cox Communications teamed with Sargent, the Springdale Public School District students and the community for donations of obsolete electronics to be transformed into art and diverted from the landfill. The result: a pair of trees, each trunk a collection of dark phones and remote controls, the trees’ canopy an assembly of green circuit boards.
Eugene Sargent says the work began to reveal itself as he and the students examined what they had to work with.
“This project is about responding to materials. We had some ideas, right, some concepts, but when it comes down to actually making this, it’s like, what do I do with this thing? How does it work and how does it fit? And so that’s what you’re going to see here is the result of all of us responding to these materials.”
Tina Gabbard, market vice president at Cox Communications, says Sargent seemed to enjoy scrounging through outmoded bits and pieces to place into the sculpture.
“When we say dumpster dive, he got in our dumpsters and that’s our recycle bins. Everything that we had. And he got in there and said, oh, I bet we can do something with this and something with that. And I keep joking about another person’s trash as somebody else’s treasure. And he has absolutely made that true here with these kids.”
Gabbard says when the idea to collaborate with students and Sargent to create a recycling-first themed sculpture was first proposed this summer, she wasn’t exactly sure what would come of the concept.
“Not at all. I had no idea. And every time I see a little update, he gives us a little sneak peek. It changes again and again and again. It wasn’t in this shape the last time I saw it, about a month ago. So it’s transformed and morphed again. But I love all the things and the usefulness of all of it too. And I love how he calls it the Tree of Communication, because it is truly what the items are. They have all been used in some way, shape or form for a form of technological communication. Including gaming and phones and amplifiers, but all forms of communication. It’s magical.
The trees in the sculpture are positioned so that observers can walk between them, and in between is where many of the fun details are positioned. Students at John Tyson School of Innovation created a dreamcatcher. Students of John Tyson School of Innovation Elementary adapted old electronics into tree-living bugs and spider webs. Sargent says their collective imaginations could run wild with all the joysticks, remote controls, phones, circuit boards “Pieces of metal cases and at least a dozen different types of wire.”
Sargeat says he had, in his words, “a giant pile of crazy things” that he wanted to form into art and art that connected with people. And he had an unusually short amount of time to complete this work, about five weeks.
The tops of the trees, the green circuit boards, quickly established the artistic vision. That idea — circuit boards canopy — he says, came early in the process.
“My first step was to just bring a bunch of parts and things and just put them in front of the kids and say, what does this make you think of? You know, and so we got so many good observations right off the bat.”
Tree of Communication is a fourth Eugene Sargent connected work of public art to debut in just a matter of weeks. There is the new mosaic, The Wishing Duck, at Terra Studios that he co-created with Kay Baskerville and John Ward, the larger-than-life pooch Obie, now watching over the Fayetteville Square next to Jammin Java in Fayetteville, and new benches to overlook the city at Mount Sequoyah.
And Tina Gabbard with Cox Communications says she’s not ready for Sargent to be done, with the art revealed Wednesday.
“I want to make a grove of trees so that we continue this work because there is still a lot more to do. He could probably keep going for years and years, but these kids are so excited and I love how the community has really embraced a lot of this too, because they’ve been bringing in items. Our employees have been bringing in items to contribute to it. It’s a lot of fun and it’s helping the environment.”
Tree of Communication will go on tour, first to Springdale Schools in honor of the students who helped make the art come to life, and Cox will soon announce the school district that participated in the recycling drive that was the impetus for the entire project. That school district will receive an extra $5,000 from Cox Charities Education.
By the way, Ozarks at Large’s Jack Travis provided reporting on the launch of the project and reported as it was in progress. You can find those stories here.
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