Nobody how many photographs you have, there’s just no way (yet) to truly visualize how it will look once installed. There’s only one option: think about placement, a lot – then place the art in its chosen space. Step back. Walk around. Stroll down the driveway. Come back. Turn the sculpture seventeen degrees to the left. Wait. Make that nineteen. Should it move away from the drive? Let’s place it about where it will remain, and ponder for several days. We can always get a tractor and a chain to move it later – and we’ll eventually have to move it to install it on its final pedestal.
Our client’s sculpture arrived, lying prone in a trailer towed by a pickup truck. The truck drove from Mendocino, picked up the piece in San Francisco, and delivered it to a hilltop site not too far from Winters.
We arrived earlier, evaluating the best possible locations for the piece, finally deciding to place it across the driveway on a knoll surrounded by oaks. This moved it away from the house, making it more part of the landscape and reducing any chances that it would prove too dominant for the area in front of the house.
Now, it’s just a matter of living with the piece for a while. Perhaps it will be moved back from the driveway to nestle among a small grove of oaks. Once the final position is determined, a concrete pedestal will replace the temporary wooded stand and the sculpture will become one with its space.