Beacon Bloom

Client: City of Carmel, Indiana

Completed: 2017

Location: Carmel Indiana, United States

Artwork Budget: $350,000

BoMar Industries Inc.

Smock Fansler Corporation

Viewers approaching and passing the roundabout see three, steel flower-like structures with curvy stems. They face south, northeast and northwest. The composition is raised well above the roundabout, making it easily visible to motorists; the tallest is more than thirty feet high. As viewers circle the form, its flowers’ undulating stems seem to make the sculpture come alive. At night the structure displays a delicate, multi-colored play of lights reflected in the undersides of the seven hundred and sixty eight stainless steel florets, which form the three flowers.

The sculpture serves as a beacon, signaling the presence of the roundabout not with a warning, but with a welcoming expression of hope and growth. It also marks an important entrance to the City of Carmel. The installation looks like a subtle firework display, a moment frozen in time.

Atop each stem is a tilted twelve-foot wide domed flower. The flowers are comprised of sixteen stainless steel clusters on curved cluster arms. Each similarly domed cluster is two feet wide and contains sixteen florets, endless laser-cut three-lobed loops of cut and folded stainless steel strip. Inside each floret space age coated dichroic glass and LED lighting are combined so that by night each is bathed in subtly changing colored light. The seven hundred and sixty eight florets together use only 135 watts of electricity.