Let's Begin
- Completion Date: 2000
- Artist: Jeff East and Rebecca Ross
- Assistants: Michelle Lowe, Amy Rey, Cyndi Salter and Rand Smith
- Location: Mounted on the south-facing retaining wall of the 202 Freeway, adjacent to the Rio Salado bike path on the north bank of Tempe Town Lake, between Mill Avenue and Rural Road. Tempe. AZ
- Materials: Handmade ceramic tiles and photo-silkscreened ceramic tiles
attached to 54, 10-foot Dryvit panels bolted to the freeway walls
- Description: This 545-foot long community mural project consists of m16,5000 handmade tiles, and is the result of four years of involvement from the Tempe community. About 3,500 participants, ranging from school-aged children to senior citizens, created small and large collaborative tiles. The imagery represents the past, present and future of the Salt River area, and its history, natural habitat and future development. Under the direction of Tempe artists Jefferson East and Rebecca Ross, Tempe Elementary School District students and community members made tiles over a four-year period. As part of Tempe's Earth Day celebration in 2000, over 300 community volunteers planted native shrubs and trees to enhance the mural site.
- Funding: This project was funded through Tempe’s municipal arts fund with additional funding from the Arizona Commission on the Arts’ A.P.P.L.E. Corps program and the KidZone after school program.
- View photos of this artwork. Click each picture to see are larger view.
Some of the tile panels in River Then, River Now, River Future depict scenes of prehistoric frontier life on the Salt River, while others illustrate the riparian area as a dry and dusty desert. Another section celebrates the Salt's new role as the Tempe Town Lake. |
What We'll Learn
- Navigating to River Then River Now River Future using a GPS receiver. The attached Public Art Walking Tour Map might help.
- View this public art from a distance
- Describe what you see
- What medium is used to create this artwork?
- What is unusual about this artwork?
- How long do you think it took to create this community mural?
- View this public art close-up
- This community mural has three main sections designated by three colors. What are the three main colors?
- What does each color represent?
- Do these three color seem appropriate for what they are representing? Why?
- If you have a camera, take a pictures of ten of you favorite tiles.
- What was special about each of these tiles to you?
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One participant created a tile with the first stanza of an ee cummings poem: |
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
by e.e. cummings
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands |
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- What poem would you have chosen to put on your tile if you had participated?
- What picture would you have chosen to put on your tile if you had participated?
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Think about these questions?
- What is public art?
- Why is this public art part of a library?
- Where else could this public art be meaningfully place? Why?
- How does this art work build community identity?
- How does this art work enhance the civic landscape?
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Let's Explore
About the Artists
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Rebecca Ross is an experienced, professional Arizona artist who has completed public art projects for the cities of Tempe, Mesa, Scottsdale, Glendale and Phoenix. She is a photographer, public artist, arts educator and a project manager for Tempe's public art projects. She was named 2001 Art Educator of the Year by the Scottsdale Cultural Council for her work with disadvantaged youth. Ross is currently working on a public art project for the City of Mesa.
Rebecca Ross has received numerous awards for her photography including a Visual Arts Fellowship and Artist Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and public art commissions for the cities of Phoenix and Scottsdale. Her work is included in a number of major art collections including the Museum of Fine Arts- Houston and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at University of Texas-Austin. She was selected 2002 Artist Educator of the Year by the Scottsdale Cultural Council for her work with disadvantaged youth. Read more. |
Jeff East is a ceramicist and teacher at McKemy Middle School. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States in more than 50 exhibitions. Since completing River Then, River Now, River Future, Jeff East has been teaching art at McKemy Middle School in Tempe. Although he hasn't pursued other large-scale projects in a public venue, he has continued to show three-dimensional relief sculptures, as well as helping organize and participate in bringing Tempe's Empty Bowls project into the Tempe Elementary School District's middle schools. He has lived in Tempe for the past 15 years. |
Other Work by the Artist
Let's Share
Let's Check
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Evaluation
- What did you enjoy about this artwork? Why?
- What did you NOT enjoy about this artwork? Why?
Reflection
- What did you learn about public art from this experience?
- How does public art add to people's enjoyment of a building?
- What aspect of this public art made the greatest impression on you? Why?
- How does this artwork help you develop a sense of your community? Help you identify with your community?
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Let's Learn More
Artist statement: This project was designed to involve children from the five elementary schools nearest the site in an effort to garner community buy-in and create "young citizen protectors" of the completed mural that was one of the first completed projects included in the development at Tempe Town Lake. The education component of the project grew to include involvement from groups such as Pueblo Grande Museum, Tempe Historical Museum and the Southwest Center for
Education in the Natural Environment. As Tempe students and community members were learning about Tempe's history and creating tiles to celebrate the imagined future of city life with the lake, artist Jeff East said, "I believe the mural itself will become a part of Tempe's history. When these kids get older, I hope they will bring their children to see it."
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Teacher's Notes
This lesson is linked to the following Arizona State Department Standards:
- Visual Arts
Strand 2: Relate
Concept 4: Meanings or Purposes
Concept # 4: Meanings or Purposes: The student will interpret meanings or purposes of artwork based on contextual information.
- Visual Arts
Strand 3: Evaluate
Concept 2: Materials, Tools, and Techniques
Concept # 2: Materials, Tools, and Techniques:The student will reflect on, and determine how materials, tools, and techniques affect meanings, purposes, and value in artworks.
- Visual Arts
Strand 3: Evaluate
Concept 4: Meanings or Purposes
Concept # 4: Meanings or Purposes: The student will judge an artist’s success in communicating meaning or purpose in their artwork.
- Technology
Standard 5: Technology Research Tools
Students utilize technology-based research tools to locate and collect information
pertinent to the task, as well as evaluate and analyze information from a variety of
sources.
- Technology
Standard 6: Technology as a Tool for Problem Solving and Decision-making
Students use technology to make and support decisions in the process of solving
real-world problems.
- Language Arts Reading
Strand 3: Comprehending Informational Text
Students identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the purpose, structures, and elements of expository text.
- Language Arts: Listening and Speaking
Students effectively listen and speak in situations that serve different purposes and involve a variety of audiences.
- LS-E1. Effectively convey the message through verbal and nonverbal communications with a specific audience
- LS-E3. Interpret and respond to questions
- Language Arts: Viewing and Presenting
Students use a variety of visual media and resources to gather, evaluate and synthesize information and to communicate with others.
- VP-E1. Analyze visual media for language, subject matter and visual techniques used to influence opinions, decision making and cultural perceptions
- VP-E2. Plan, develop and produce a visual presentation, using a variety of media such as videos, films, newspapers, magazines and computer images
- VP-E3. Compare, contrast and establish criteria to evaluate visual media for purpose and effectiveness
- Social Studies: Geography
Concept 1: The World in Spatial Terms
The spatial perspective and associated geographic tools are used to organize and interpret information about people, places and
environments.
- PO-1:Use different kinds of maps to solve problems
- PO-7: Locate physical features in AZ using maps and other location devices
- Social Studies: Geography
Concept 4: Human systems and culture, their nature, and their distribution affects societies and the Earth.
- PO-4: Describe cultural characteristics of Arizona's diverse populations
- PO-6: Describe elements of culture in areas studied
- Workplace Skills Standards
- Standard 1: Students use principles of effective oral, written and listening communication skills to make decisions and solve problems.
- Standard 2: Students apply computation skills and data analysis techniques to make decisions and solve problems.
- Standard 3: Students apply critical and creative thinking skills to make decisions and solve problems.
- Standard 4: Students work individually and collaboratively within team settings to accomplish objectives.
- Standard 7: Students demonstrate technological literacy for productivity in the workplace.
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