Journey of a Bottle, at the Walnut Creek Main Library

Different from every approach and point of view, Journey of a Bottle fills the end of the Walnut Creek main library building with a turning gyre of color and reflected light in the form of glass bottles, punctuated with linear curves of gleaming, silvery steel.  The hanging sculpture’s forms seem at first to all be conjoined into one, but when viewed from the side, expand into four separate parts. 

The main component is a curving plane of glass and steel: a ‘school’ of vividly-colored glass bottles strung on a grid of steel cables, following each other head to toe like fish in a school. Bottles and frame together form a graceful spiral that turns in on itself.  One end of the plane points down towards the main floor of the library below, while the other curls with a baroque-looking flourish. 

Following the lines visually reveals that the ‘swimming’ bottles face in two directions. Strung on the cables ‘head to tail’ (neck to base), some go away from the piece’s center and some towards it, as if cycling indefinitely through the library’s quiet sunlit space.  By facing them in both directions, Hall gives the piece the illusion of even greater movement, as well as emphasizing the meaning behind the piece’s title: that glass bottles can make a journey through a cycle of use/reuse/recycling many times, whereas disposable container’s brief life is followed by becoming trash forever. At the other end of the sculpture, a double-ended steel arrow invokes the same idea, reminding us that energy moves constantly. One part of the arrow/ line slips through the curve of glass bottles, rising up and then pointing down. At its other end, the arrow’s spiral escapes the sculpture’s turning planes and, circling, points neither towards it nor away from it. The three steel elements closest to the library doors—two rings, one strung with more bottles, and the arrow--are connected to each other by a single point of contact. This delicacy, combined with the way Journey is suspended from the ceiling on an intricately-engineered system of steel cables, creates a feeling of weightlessness, recalling Alexander Calder’s air-born sculptures.

 The piece’s location-- centered over the hallway on the first floor, and offset slightly from the staircase to the mezzanine—places it closer to one side of the upper level than the other. On that side, a long high counter with tall chairs borders the railing, offering visitors who are working there on laptops or writing notes the opportunity to pause for a moment and look directly through the curve of bottles only five or six feet away: too far to touch, but close enough to have an intimate experience with the massive work. Whether seen from this proximity or for the stairs; from the floor below, or from outside at night, each point of view offers a different experience.

-Maria Porges