Monday, October 3, 2011

Leaving an Artistic Mark on Her City

Diana Kersey is a potter in San Antonio who, in 2009, was awarded a Public Art Commission in the City of San Antonio to design, build, and install ceramic panels for the Mulberry Avenue and Millrace Bridges as part of a drainage project at Brackenridge Park.
The city wanted her to depict the health of waterways. When the public were consulted about the Mulberry Bridge, they wanted a landmark, something distinctive. Diana took both those requests, linked water health with the health of amphibians, chose the local Gulf Coast Toad, and created 24 hand-crafted ceramic panels — most of them 2 feet by 6 feet, about 208 square feet of fired clay in all — on both sides of the bridge's two guardrails, telling the toad's life story.
Image above: Diana Kersey drew from the connections among the bridge, water and animal life for her first public art project, the Mulberry Avenue Bridge. STEVE BENNETT / EXPRESS-NEWS

See images of this project.

Read Steve Bennett's article in the San Antonio Express from June 23, 2011.