FLOOD10354

• County: Mesa
• Community: Grand Junction
• Stream Name: Colorado River
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Title: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Waterfront Redevelopment and Design - A Case Study of the Colorado Riverfront
• Date: 6/1/1988
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Educational/Technical/Reference Information

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Figure 15,
Junk Sculpture

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Figure 16.
Dinosaur sculpture, Los Angeles

interest over several decades. A similar gesture in Grand Junc-
tion, using the basic raw material of the shore lined chrome
and car bodies, would encourage people to perceive that a
change was going to take place (see fig, 15). Of course, there
are some well-known sculptors who have used as their basic
material these artifacts of the auto age. Probably the dean of
the sculptors is the artist John Chamberlain who might be
encouraged to judge a competition among junk sculptors. A
well. known artist in Aspen, who also works with car bodies
and whose work has been displayed on the mall downtown,
might be invited to construct works on site as artist-in-
residence in the junkyards and for the local schools with the
right to sell the sculptures that he builds after an appropriate
display period along the waterfront.

The Dinosaur Park on Lewis Island

This project can certainly be defined as a "place maker",
but it may not be called a work of public art. The objective

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Figure 17.
"Lucy, the Margate Elephant", New Jersey

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is to make visitors aware that .they are in Dinosaur Country
when they cross the bridge. The dinosaurs are a place maker
of another sort. Like the tree exhibit designed by Rovert
Venturi for the Philadelphia Zoo, there could be something
that children can climb through so that they serve as dinosaur
tree houses (see figs. 16 & 17), Obviously, they must be durable
and large, probably at least life size, and there should be several
of them and as realistic as possible. The great dinosaur, mark-
ing a popular food store and eatery in Carbazon, a pitstop
on the way to Palm Springs on Interstate Ten, is a good
example of a contemporary eye-stopper. Unfortunately, it
cannot be walked upon or climbed on or through. An earlier
example - which was more lovable because it was higWy
stylized and also allowed people to walk through it - is the
still-surviving Margate Elephant in Margate City just south
of Atlantic City in New Jersey. Of course, some people will
find this idea a bit "hokey"; but it serves to merge a pop culture
sensibility with a serious environmental purpose. One would
hope that an artist-in-residence program as part of the public
works effort to build this park would mean that the park
benches, and barbecue pits, if picnics are allowed, would also
be designed by artisans.

Dinosaur lake on the Uranium Tailings Park Site

This idea reinforces the dinosaurs on Lewis Island and
although it will probably not be discernible without some inter-
pretive plaques at ground level, it might be a new point of
interest seen from the observation tower on top of the park
headquarters which has been proposed for Confluence Point.
Again, the benches around it would reinforce the theme -
inlays of dinosaur eggs in the picnic tables, footprints around
the barbecue pits, elements which allow the visitor to better
understand the scale and habits of the dinosaur.