CO2LED

Temporary Public Art Encourages Environmental Stewardship
Public art addresses environmental concerns and leads the way to the annual Planet Arlington World Music Festival in Rosslyn

A trio of environmentally-friendly artists, Jack Sanders, Robert Gay, and Butch Anthony will create a temporary public artwork in Rosslyn from Wednesday, June 6th through Friday, June 15, 2007. The project, titled CO2LED, will be erected at the traffic island at Ft. Myer Drive,North Lynn Street, and North Fairfax Drive, just north of the Meade Street Bridge over Arlington Boulevard (Route 50) at the southern entrance to Rosslyn, near the Iwo Jima memorial. On display through Labor Day, CO2LED celebrates environmental stewardship andbeckons the way to the second annual Planet Arlington World Music Festival (Saturday, September 1, 4-10 PM at the Netherlands Carillon). A satellite display of CO2LED will occur at the southern tip of Crystal City, on the traffic island where Route 1 meets Crystal Drive.

CO2LED promotes the use of alternative energy sources as well as recycling and responds to Arlington’s environmental initiative, FreshAIRE(Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions). 552 solar-powered LEDs (light-emitting diodes) secured to rods of varying heights, each topped with a reused plastic drink bottle, illuminate the traffic island between North Lynn Street and Ft. Myer Drive. The poles’ slight flexibility,combined with the LEDs’ nebulous glow underneath the ridged surfaces of the plastic drink bottles, create a soft, undulating cloud oflight. A native American prairie grass, little bluestem, is planted beneath the poles and stands in contrast to the grid upon which the poles are installed. At the exhibition’s conclusion, the plants will be transplanted to sites throughout the County and all project materials will berecycled.

"This temporary' project promotes 'sustainability,' hails the availability of alternative energy sources and technologies and demonstrates theease of recycling," says Jack Sanders. "We will reuse all the materials used in the project--everything."

The use of energy-efficient, solar-powered LEDs, rather than conventional incandescent bulbs, has the power to significantly reduce therelease of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the environment. Conventional lighting, fueled by power plants which generate energy throughburning fossil fuels, requires far more energy than LEDs, resulting in increased carbon dioxide emissions. Being solar-powered, CO2LEDproduces long-lasting illumination, free of toxic by-products. The team collaborated with local solar-power supplier Jody Solell of SolarElectrics (www.SolarElectricsVA.com) to determine the most appropriate solar panels to employ for this project and to demonstrate thelocal availability of such technology.

CO2LED was developed in conjunction with Planet Arlington, http://www.arlingtonarts.org/PlanetArlington.htm a year-round culturalprogramming initiative designed to explore issues of immigration, globalization and the environment through the lens of the arts andhumanities. CO2LED beckons the way to the Planet Arlington World Music Festival, which is the signature event for Planet Arlington. Thisexhibition was sponsored by Arlington County, Department of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources.Jack Sanders, Robert Gay, and Butch Anthony met while working at the renowned Auburn University Rural Studio www.cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/. This program guides students in the design and construction of affordable and sustainablehomes for the economically disadvantaged living in Hale County, Alabama. In addition to working collaboratively, each artist alsooperates his own design business: Jack Sanders operates Design Build Adventure www.beaconlives.com and Robert Gay runs THOUGHTBARN (www.thoughtbarn.com), both out of Austin, Texas. Together they collaborated on a large-scale, temporary public artproject for First Night Austin http://www.beaconlives.com/firstnight.pdf in 2006. The team is also developing a permanent public artproject in association with the future Lance Armstrong Bikeway Project in Austin, TX http://www.nextproject.info/ Butch Anthony of Butch, Anthony of Seale, Alabama operates Museum of Wonder www.museumofwonder.com and completed a temporary public art project forArlington in 2006, enveloping a Rosslyn bicycle kiosk (the Bike the Sites Oasis http://www.bikeoasis.com/, located at the northwest corner of19th and North Moore Streets, half a block north of the Rosslyn Metro) in a web of recycled bicycle parts and street signage.