“Sewing Needle”
© Stuart Williams 1993. All rights reserved.
Big Sur, California (length of needle = 300 ft.)
PROPOSED PROJECT
300 ft. Needle: The “Needle” would be a precisely engineered replica of a sewing needle, 300 feet in length and six feet in diameter at its widest section. As though piercing a giant pin cushion, the Needle would spear the side of one of the folds in the hills, and emerge from the other side. It would, in fact, be two separate cantilevered, triangulated aluminum trusses, acting as the skeletal support for a precisely formed, polished aluminum skin. Each cantilever, one on either side of a fold in the hills, would be in perfect alignment to create the impression of a single needle piercing all the way through the hill.
Said Williams, ”the idea came to me during a trip to California’s central coast. I had just read a story in ‘The New Yorker’ about the geological history of the state, in which a geologist described how the ‘folded’ hills of coastal California had been ‘stitched’ together over the eons, as plate tectonic forces had repeatedly shoved the Pacific Plate up against the western edge of the North American Plate.” This is a temporary installation that would be in place for 3 to 4 months.
Click on any image for a larger view.
© Stuart Williams 1993. All rights reserved.
Big Sur, California (length of needle = 300 ft.)
PROPOSED PROJECT
300 ft. Needle: The “Needle” would be a precisely engineered replica of a sewing needle, 300 feet in length and six feet in diameter at its widest section. As though piercing a giant pin cushion, the Needle would spear the side of one of the folds in the hills, and emerge from the other side. It would, in fact, be two separate cantilevered, triangulated aluminum trusses, acting as the skeletal support for a precisely formed, polished aluminum skin. Each cantilever, one on either side of a fold in the hills, would be in perfect alignment to create the impression of a single needle piercing all the way through the hill.
Said Williams, ”the idea came to me during a trip to California’s central coast. I had just read a story in ‘The New Yorker’ about the geological history of the state, in which a geologist described how the ‘folded’ hills of coastal California had been ‘stitched’ together over the eons, as plate tectonic forces had repeatedly shoved the Pacific Plate up against the western edge of the North American Plate.” This is a temporary installation that would be in place for 3 to 4 months.
Click on any image for a larger view.
Artist’s sketch showing the “Needle” installed in the hills.
Artist's photo simulation of the installed “Needle” along the Big Sur Coast.
