David Barr
Materials: Treated Wood
Dimensions: 6.5’H x 3’W x 3’D
Created: 1996
Installed: 1996
Just outside the main entrance of Michigan Legacy Art Park founder and former artistic director, David Barr, sculpted a work that provides a benchmark for time and place and serves as a keystone for your tour of the Park. Barr created Solar Month for this exact location. Here, very close to the 45th parallel, the passage of time can easily be measured each month as the sun passes from the Summer to Winter solstice.
In addition to providing a calendar, the relationship of Earth and Sun allows us to fix our location on the planet. Consider that if you were to travel the 45th parallel from this point, you would pass through Bordeaux, France; Turin, Italy; Belgrade; Bucharest; Bole, China; and Heronobe, Japan.
Utility is not the only function of Solar Month. As a work of art, it has the ability to move us beyond the physical “here and now” to a place where there is time for consideration and reflection. Through the merging of utility and spirit the mission of Michigan Legacy Art Park can be realized.
