Because God Made You

“BECAUSE GOD M A D E Y O U ” Proposed Art Installation for

The First United Methodist Church of Santa Rosa, Stony Point Campus

IN MEMORIA M OF PARISHIONERS

Edwin Connard Floyd 1912-1987

Clara King Floyd Ryan 1917-2005

Presented to the FUMC Board of Trustees

25 January 2012

DESIGNED BY Sharon Elizabeth Floyd Clarke (granddaughter) and Seth Porter Clarke

ON BEHALF OF FAMILY MEMBERS Robert Ryan (husband and parishioner of FUMC of Santa Rosa) Chet Floyd (son) Ken Floyd (son)

L. Peter Floyd (son)

Marty Toepke-Floyd (son)

Tell me why the stars do shine, Tell me why the ivy twines, Tell me why the skies are blue, And I will tell you just why I love you.

Because God made the stars to shine, Because God made the ivy twine, Because God made the sky so blue, Because God made you, that’s why I love you.

“TELL ME WHY” TRADITIONAL FOLK SONG

3

I N S P I R AT ION

The first impressions that inspired this memorial art piece dedicated to Clara and Ned Floyd came during our visit to Santa Rosa in 2005 to attend the funeral for Clara. After the services, we reconvened at the family home for a lunchtime visit with Bob Ryan. We took a walk in the backyard, and were met by a most pleasant, suburban California scene: a sun drenched garden surrounded with fruit trees, a wisteria arbor, lilac bushes, planter boxes, bird houses and wind chimes. It wasn’t a huge yard by any means, but every inch of it seemed dedicated to some fragrant, fertile purpose. We had this wonderful feeling, stepping under the lovely canopy of their fig tree, looking up to see dappled sunlight filtering down through green foliage of each fruit-bearing bough overhead. We recognized that their garden was a sacred space where Clara and Ned worked hard and admired the beauty of God’s creation in everything they grew together.

These earliest ideas of the garden as a sacred space, of filtered light passing through layers of foliage from a green canopy overhead and a lifetime of fruit-bearing labors were all concepts that would stay with us throughout our design.

4

That same afternoon, we visited another sacred space inside the house: Clara’s craft room. She and Ned came from a generation that made things by hand, put up cans of preserves and wrote copious letters to long-distance friends and family. It was clear to us that Clara had spent many hours in this small and tidy craft room, a birthplace to her many clever handicraft creations. From delicate needlepoint to impressive quilts which she gifted through the years to family and friends, these all demonstrated a great love for handmade creativity.

Regarding quilting, a concept emerged that we found very compelling. Patterns of color can be arranged in grand geometrical schemes, but when studied at close range, one can see how larger areas of color are often comprised of many smaller patterns with groupings or families of color and pattern. What appears from a distance to be a solid patch of blue fabric may, upon closer inspection, be a print fabric of many tiny flowers in several shades of blue.

We took from this the concept of different scales of organization, as well as the concept of similar component colors which can be grouped into more general color families.

I N S P I R AT ION

5

Of course their church membership with the First United Methodist Church was another aspect of their lives which brought great meaning and joy to Clara and Ned, which is why an FUMC chapel was an obvious home for their memorial. As we considered the prospect of creating a memorial in a religious context, we quickly recognized the importance of creating something that could be meaningful not just to the Floyd Family but to a more general audience. Many of the parishioners of the Stony Point campus would not have known the Floyds, and we wanted our composition to resonate with that larger community as well.

Within a religious context, the ideas of canopy, filtered light and even quilting all come together in a typology most familiar to religious art, which is of course stained glass. In so many ways, stained glass is essentially quilting with light: traditionally large patterns of color, arranged to tell stories, are comprised of many smaller pieces of similarly colored panes of glass, stitched together to form a whole.

Although we knew we didn’t want to make a literal stained glass window in a traditional sense given the contemporary nature of the Stony Point chapel, stain glass was nevertheless the strongest unifying idea for all our various inspirations.

6

These concepts all coalesced around an organic, natural theme. Central to each of these ideas of foliage, quilting, and stained glass, one can see greater and greater systems of organization the closer one looks; one can see the effect of light filtered through color; and at a most basic level, one can appreciate the beauty of creation, order and progression. So as we set about conceiving our design, we wanted to create a system that embodied the characteristics which Clara and Ned knew so well, and which believers find all around them: evidence or fruits of their Creator’s divine handiwork.

I N S P I R AT ION

7

GEOMETRY & COLOR

We began by giving ourselves the most basic building block: a square. Harkening back to our grandmother’s handicrafts, the quilting square is perhaps the most rigorous geometry upon which grander patterns are created. But applying what we saw as a natural development, we chose to let that geometry lengthen and evolve, gradually progressing till it became evocative of something else -- a leaf.

To that, we added a second layer of articulation or detail so often found in nature. We found that within the general shape of that progression, we could subdivide the quilting square into smaller shapes that would also evolve to become the veins of the leaf.

8

With a systemic vocabulary for the physical shapes now defined, we found that deploying each building block we had created was simple. A natural transition emerged where the strictly organized quilting squares at the start could morph, elongate and grow literally into a more naturally varying pattern. The further we moved away from the rigorous grid, the more amorphous the arrangement became. Shapes could shift, slide and overlap one with another as they reached upward, creating a tangle of layers akin to the foliage that originally inspired us.

geometry & color

9

On a parallel track, we sought to organize the full spectrum of colors into groupings which, in the aggregate formed general color families: green, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue and so on. (See vertical axis to the left on the diagram above.) Within each color family there are crossovers or shared component colors – recognizing for example, that the same orange color could belong to the yelloworange family as well as the orange-red family.

When applied to all our shapes (see horizontal axis of our diagram) the shared colors served to blend the different colored panels into a smoothly layered gradient that reinforced their progression. Instead of coding specific shapes to specific colors, we chose to make each shape span three color families (i.e. the longest rectangle is represented in the orange-red family, the red-purple family and the purple-blue family). Inversely, the same color families are represented in at least three different shapes.

10

With our composition now taking shape, we came full circle and returned to the ideas of stained glass to consider how this pattern could be physically displayed. We felt it important to create an installation that was passive, low-maintenance, affordable, easily installed, and conceptually temporary such that it could be relocated at some future date. Recalling the stained glass iconography, we chose to embed the colored patterns into translucent panels that would allow light to filter down through layers similar to a leafy canopy. We chose to fasten them onto a rigid structure or “trellis” that follows a similar pattern of development, starting with a rigorous grid that transitions to become more naturally branching limbs. Like the twining ivy, our composition now climbs upward to the light.

As an assembly, the trellis comes apart in two main pieces to which all the many separate panels are affixed using aluminum “stand-off ” hardware. As such, one can think of this more as a collage hung on the wall, rather than a permanent installation. We anticipate the pieces will be light-weight, and easily installed and uninstalled when the time comes to move the piece to a future, more permanent home. geometry & color

11

texture

To this we felt that one final layer of textures within each color would add complexity, richness, and help reinforce the blending progression from quilt to foliage. Using high-resolution printing, actual images can be embedded in each translucent panel. From buttons to butterflies, honeycomb and yarn, we chose an assortment of organic and craft-related textures that were reflective of the color families already established and symbolic of the many timeless fruits of creation.

12

texture

13

final composition

14

fgi n eo am l ectorm y p& o sci o t il o on r

15

final composition

B

A

We propose that the composition arrive pre-assembled, ready to be fastened to the existing walls as a piece of art. Thanks to the trellis frame, the piece can be removed and relocated with ease.

While we had originally proposed a location at the rear of the chapel (Option A) we feel it also worth considering a more prominent location at the front of the chapel (Option B) where it can be better appreciated as an inspiration to worship.

16

EXIT

Option A: The original location as originally proposed at the back of the chapel.

Option B: An alternate location on the front angled wall to the left of center.

I N S TA L L AT ION

17

The First United Methodist Church of Santa Rosa Stony Point Campus

I N M E M O R I A M Clara Floyd Ryan

I N M E M O R I A M Clara Floyd Ryan

I N M E M O R I A M Clara Floyd Ryan

I N M E M O R I A M Clara Floyd Ryan

I N M E M O R I A M Clara Floyd Ryan

I N M E M O R I A M Clara Floyd Ryan

I N M E M O R I A M Clara Floyd Ryan

I N M E M O R I A M Clara Floyd Ryan

I N M E M O R I A M Clara Floyd Ryan

I N M E M O R I A M Clara Floyd Ryan