Thanks from the Saved Ones

The U.S. Coast Guard’s world-renowned search and rescue operations inspired Mark di Suvero to create Thanks from the Saved Ones, a boldly abstract sculpture that pays homage to that perilous, heroic and vital work.  Anchored within a shimmering reflecting pool, the sculpture’s stainless steel base comprises a prow-shaped footing and mast-like pillar, from which is suspended a calligraphic ribbon of torch-cut titanium.  The gentle rotation of the titanium element produces ever-shifting sculptural silhouettes against the sky, trees and surrounding architecture.

Di Suvero is one of the nation’s most accomplished and celebrated artists.  He pioneered on a grand scale a new form of participatory public sculpture.  A self-trained welder and licensed crane operator, di Suvero works with the same raw materials used for buildings, bridges and ships.  The son of an Italian naval officer, the artist often employs maritime imagery in his work.  The free-form shape that crowns Thanks from the Saved Ones might suggest any number of associations, such as jagged coastal rocks, billowing clouds and crashing waves.  About his abstract compositions, di Suvero has said: “I would like to find those kinds of forms that are deep within our dream world, within our subconscious.”