At the new East County Library, artwork greets patrons throughout the space. We sat down with one of the artists, who also supports the community through their work at Multnomah County!
Art information:
North
Bronze on stainless steel base
52" x 61" x 26"
Terresa White is a contemporary sculptor and artist inspired by her Yup’ik Alaska Native heritage. White also supports public health through her role with Multnomah County’s Health Department’s Tobacco Control and Prevention Program.
White collaborated with Mike Suri to create a series of three bronze and stainless steel sculptures outside East County Library titled Boundless: North, Center, South. When White saw the call for public art, she was thrilled — especially as someone living nearby with a connection to the new library. “All I knew is I very much would like to participate in any kind of public art opportunity at Multnomah County Library,” she says. It didn’t take long for White to realize that a collaboration would be a great way to answer the call, and to reach out to Suri.
In the past, White and Suri worked together on a sculpture for Portland’s Errol Heights Park, Presence Water Shedding. During that collaboration, White realized they had a mutual interest in connecting the natural and the built environment in the work. White shares, “I recognized that Mike and I still have a lot of things that we could work out together, and ways that we could complement each other’s work. So I invited him to collaborate and he accepted!”
Art information:
Center
Bronze and stainless steel base
52" x 61" x 26"
The sculptures are made with bronze and steel, selected based on the artists’ expertise, their durability for public art, and how well the materials connect together. Each features an empty circular space at the center. “Early on, we were playing with patterns and shapes that could be a symbol of an invitation,” White shares. “We wanted to invite people to the new library to explore all the resources, to make cultural connections, and to experience the vast knowledge and information housed in the library.” In White’s work, portals express curiosity, wonder, mystery, and “a point of entry into all of the amazing things that the library has to offer.”
Common visual themes echo across both Suri and White’s work like portals, petals, and spheres. “Mike and I designed these and fabricated these elements in our own pieces, and we did this in a little bit of a call-and-response way that I think can happen in collaboration,” White says. “We echoed each other's choices in our sculpting. We mirrored each other. We bounced visual ideas off of each other and developed something that we wouldn't otherwise have developed.”
White was raised in rural Oregon, with a mix of Yup’ik and working-class white values. Her family moved from Alaska to the Pacific Northwest when White’s mother was young. “Our family suffered a loss of cultural connection and language in that move,” she shares. “From the time I was young, I was really yearning for cultural connection. My culture bearers taught us Yup’ik ways — the imperative of showing care and respect to elders and to children. They taught us to be careful with all living things and that everything is living. Significantly, their ways of being in the world helped me experience mystery.” White learned the necessity of sharing joy, giving and receiving gifts, how to live in community, and how all beings are interconnected.
“I learned that things can be sacred and mundane at the same time,” White says, another way they experienced mystery in her youth. “The surreal expressions in my clay and bronze figures are born in a way of that place of mystery that I learned.” White is also inspired by Yup’ik dance masks and stories of transformation.
In White’s work for Multnomah County’s Tobacco Control and Prevention Program, she's energized by connecting with communities. White finds “fulfillment contributing to the health and wellness of communities that make up Multnomah County. That inspires me.”
For White, part of developing public art is facilitating an ongoing conversation. “I love to create spaces where various ways of knowing and people's strengths are brought together to answer collective questions or specific needs. I'm inspired by that in my public art practice, too.” Ultimately, White wants to “uplift communities both in my work at the county and in my development of public art.”
Art information:
South
Bronze and stainless steel
We hope you’ll stop by East County Library soon to explore White and Suri’s art. Don’t forget to enjoy nearly 200,000 library books, remarkable spaces for the community, & so much more. A whole world of wonder is waiting to welcome you to Multnomah County’s newest library!