Matthew Mazzotta’s (SMVisS ’09) Wrapped in Sunbeams was recently featured in The Architect’s Newspaper, where it is referred to as “the artist’s ‘quietest work’ to date.”
With collaborators Sujin Lim, Stephanie Yeung, Daniel Shieh, and Yalun Li, Wrapped in Sunbeams is a shade structure that looks like a barn. Its made of dichroic glass with an orange fruit weathervane on top, a nice Dadaist touch. The dichroic glass, Mazzotta said, creates a constantly changing image of soft pastel colors and shadows that change throughout the day.
Wrapped in Sunbeams, commissioned by the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, is a public meeting space created for the community at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center. The design of the public sculpture is a balance of the Center’s historical farming identity and its contemporary contributions to the field of rehabilitation medicine over the last 100 years:
Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center was founded in 1888 to serve farming families who could not afford medical services (original name “The County Poor Farm”). By 1922 the facility had fully transitioned from a poor farm to a medical facility although farming operations would continue on the grounds. Currently, Rancho Los Amigos is now ranked among America’s best hospitals in rehabilitation medicine and has pioneered numerous medical innovations and patented inventions that have transformed the field.
Clients at Rancho Los Amigos are individuals recovering from acute physical traumas directly limiting their mobility. Through countless interviews with patients and staff the aim of the new public space is to make a quiet, reflective, and aspirational piece of art that could “let your mind be at ease for a minute”. Wrapped in Sunbeams is a balance of Rancho’s farming history and its contemporary cutting edge practices. The iconic physical form stems from the wooden barns that were used when the property was a citrus farm, however the gabled ends of this barn are removed and the roof and walls are made of color-transforming dichroic glass. This dichroic glass allows the barn to be a welcoming light-filled destination for residents and their families to meet, and at the same time be a visually dynamic landmark on campus with colors and shadows shifting throughout the day providing a sense of movement and transformation. The weather vane on top of the structure is in the shape of an orange with a green stem and two leaves.
Healing, movement, and transformation are key goals of the clients of Rancho Los Amigos. The softly changing pastel colors makes Wrapped in Sunbeams an uplifting space throughout the day that feels healing to be in its presence. The title comes from a Los Angeles Times article: “A poor farm in the midst of an orange grove, wrapped in sunbeams and wreathed with flower gardens, the Los Angeles County Poor Farm transmitting the influence of its buoyancy into human hearts” – “Poor Farm amid Orange Blossoms” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 1902
