Floor Sculpture Inspired by Michigan Forest

Grand Rapids, MI, Sept. 10, 2008--Michele Oka Doner has spent the past year working on her newest sculpture, only to have visitors at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park walk all over it.

That's just what the internationally acclaimed artist wants them to do, according to a story in the Grand Rapids Press.

"Beneath the Leafy Crown" is made of 1,650 bronze-leaf and botanically inspired elements embedded in a dark-green terrazzo floor, covering 12,000 square feet of the conservatory's hallway.

Oka Doner began working on the project in October.

"(It) has consumed an entire year, from imagining the images, drawing them in wax, cutting them out and casting them in bronze," she said. "The cast bronze units are then installed on site in a random, spontaneous way, as much a part of the work of art as the images themselves."

The work is scheduled to be completed Oct. 1, with a section of plain terrazzo set to be finished by spring.

Oka Doner's floor is part of $7.6 million worth of renovations and improvements under way at Meijer Gardens.

"When we realized that our current floor was to be replaced, I approached our president and CEO David Hooker on (the Oka Doner) project, and he was very excited," said Joseph Becherer, director of exhibitions and curator of sculpture.

"Eventually, it was presented to Fred and Lena Meijer and, through the Meijer Foundation, it is coming into being," he said.

Oka Doner, a native of the Miami area who earned her master of fine arts degree at the University of Michigan, boasts a career spanning four decades. Her art is part of the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, both in New York City.

"Regardless of the project, nature is her guide," Becherer said. "Our floor is based on the life of a Michigan forest floor. Some elements are recognizable -- leaves, branches -- while others are more abstract -- fragments of bark, pollen and microscopic elements."

"In many ways, it is exactly the mission of Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, visualized," Becherer said.