Stacy Levy
Encyclopedia
Stacy Levy is a sculptor who works in sculptural media suggestive of ecological natural patterns and processes such as water flows. Her studio is based in rural Pennsylvania, but she works on projects around the world.
Hudson River Park, Piers 34 and 25, New York, NY on hold
Hudson River Park Trust with Mathews Neilsen Landscape Architects
33 units 9’ wide Marine vinyl, steel, polycarbonate plastic, foam.
Nature does not stop in the city. The Hudson River, brushing against the concrete and glass of the urban fabric, rises up and down twice a day with the eternal clock of the tides. This tidal activity connects us to the ocean, to the moon and to a daily schedule that is nature’s own.
Tide Flowers will register the tidal movement with a simple visual presence of brilliantly-colored flowers blooming at high tide and closing at low tide. Tide Flowers is made up of thirty-three flower units, each with six petals, attached to selected wooden piles on two piers. Twenty-five flowers will be placed in a field-like formation on selected pilings at the end of pier 25, visible from both the path and the new park. Eight additional tide flowers will be attached to pilings closer to the pathway to give park users a hint of the larger field of flowers beyond.
River Eyelash:
Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, PA 2005
3,000 painted buoys radiate out from the bulkhead of the Point State Park, like an eyelash for the city. The eyelash continuously changes formation in response to wind direction, speed of the currents and boat wakes.
Kept Out
Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia, PA. 2009-2010. Part of Edible Landscapes, curated by Amy Lipton
Kept Out consists of a pair of deer exclosures, the fenced areas to keep deer out: one built near the artist’s studio in a woodland in Pennsylvania’s Ridge and Valley region and the other at the woodlands edge of Schuylkill Center for Environmental and Education in the Piedmont ecosystem. Both sites face a great deal of deer pressure.
AMD&Art Project in Vintondale Vintondale, PA 1995 -2005.
Collaboration with Julie Bargmann, Landscape Architect. Robert Deason, Hydrogeologist and T. Allan Comp Historian
Acid mine drainage pollutes hundreds of miles of streams in Pennsylvania. At Mine Number Six in Vintondale, in the coal mining region of south central Pennsylvania, artists, landscape architects, scientists and historians collaborated on ways to treat AMD while interpreting the coal mining history and the passive treatment processes. This project creates a public park and water treatment facility.
Watermap: Friends’ Central School, Wynnewood, PA 2003
Tributaries of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers are deeply sandblasted into bluestone paved terrace. When it rains, the rainwater flows into the runnels of the tributaries and then into deeply inscribed Delaware River, creating a watershed in miniature.
Cloud Stones: Mineral Springs Park, Seattle Arts Council, Seattle WA. 2004
The highly polished black stone domes reflect the sky and the clouds formations. Text sandblasted around the domes tells of the types of weather which these cloud formations bring. The white domes have more of evening presence, and their text tells of the moon and stars. As the light fades at dusk, the white domes remain bright while the dark domes sink into the shadows
Levy's recent work includes "Lotic Meander", one of three projects selected by the Ontario Science Centre
's Project Art.
"Lotic Meander" is a snakelike (described by the Toronto Star
as "serpentine") walkway that resembles a dried riverbed outside the Ontario Science Centre's Great Hall. The snakelike stream is 91.4 metres long, and winds along a path that takes up most of the Solar Patio, outside the Great Hall. The piece is made from 116 granite slabs from India, and 8 nearly perfect hemispherical or hemiellipsoidal black domes carved from boulders imported from China. The highly polished domes are similar, in appearance, to the domes used to house surveillance cameras.
Along some of the curves of the path there are also nicely polished smooth round glass pebbles, in variously coloured translucent glass.
From rivers to runoff, Levy has explored the many facets of water: urban watersheds, storm water, hydrologic patterns and water treatment. One of her current projects for the City of Yonkers' waterfront - incorporates the use of LED technology to visually manifest the ebb and flow of the Hudson River tide. Ms. Levy has completed numerous rainwater pieces including a watershed rain terrace for Penn State University's new Arboretum, and rain garden for Springside School
with the Philadelphia Water Department
and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
. She has public commissions in New York, Seattle, Philadelphia, Tampa, New Jersey, Canada and Niigata, Japan.
.
She graduated from Yale University
with a BA in Sculpture, studied at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and graduated from the Tyler School of Art
at Temple University
with a MFA in Sculpture.
Recent works
Tide Flowers:Hudson River Park, Piers 34 and 25, New York, NY on hold
Hudson River Park Trust with Mathews Neilsen Landscape Architects
33 units 9’ wide Marine vinyl, steel, polycarbonate plastic, foam.
Nature does not stop in the city. The Hudson River, brushing against the concrete and glass of the urban fabric, rises up and down twice a day with the eternal clock of the tides. This tidal activity connects us to the ocean, to the moon and to a daily schedule that is nature’s own.
Tide Flowers will register the tidal movement with a simple visual presence of brilliantly-colored flowers blooming at high tide and closing at low tide. Tide Flowers is made up of thirty-three flower units, each with six petals, attached to selected wooden piles on two piers. Twenty-five flowers will be placed in a field-like formation on selected pilings at the end of pier 25, visible from both the path and the new park. Eight additional tide flowers will be attached to pilings closer to the pathway to give park users a hint of the larger field of flowers beyond.
River Eyelash:
Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, PA 2005
3,000 painted buoys radiate out from the bulkhead of the Point State Park, like an eyelash for the city. The eyelash continuously changes formation in response to wind direction, speed of the currents and boat wakes.
Kept Out
Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia, PA. 2009-2010. Part of Edible Landscapes, curated by Amy Lipton
Kept Out consists of a pair of deer exclosures, the fenced areas to keep deer out: one built near the artist’s studio in a woodland in Pennsylvania’s Ridge and Valley region and the other at the woodlands edge of Schuylkill Center for Environmental and Education in the Piedmont ecosystem. Both sites face a great deal of deer pressure.
AMD&Art Project in Vintondale Vintondale, PA 1995 -2005.
Collaboration with Julie Bargmann, Landscape Architect. Robert Deason, Hydrogeologist and T. Allan Comp Historian
Acid mine drainage pollutes hundreds of miles of streams in Pennsylvania. At Mine Number Six in Vintondale, in the coal mining region of south central Pennsylvania, artists, landscape architects, scientists and historians collaborated on ways to treat AMD while interpreting the coal mining history and the passive treatment processes. This project creates a public park and water treatment facility.
Watermap: Friends’ Central School, Wynnewood, PA 2003
Tributaries of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers are deeply sandblasted into bluestone paved terrace. When it rains, the rainwater flows into the runnels of the tributaries and then into deeply inscribed Delaware River, creating a watershed in miniature.
Cloud Stones: Mineral Springs Park, Seattle Arts Council, Seattle WA. 2004
The highly polished black stone domes reflect the sky and the clouds formations. Text sandblasted around the domes tells of the types of weather which these cloud formations bring. The white domes have more of evening presence, and their text tells of the moon and stars. As the light fades at dusk, the white domes remain bright while the dark domes sink into the shadows
Ontario Science Centre
Ontario Science Centre is a science museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, near the Don Valley Parkway about northeast of downtown on Don Mills Road just south of Eglinton Avenue East...
's Project Art.
"Lotic Meander" is a snakelike (described by the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
as "serpentine") walkway that resembles a dried riverbed outside the Ontario Science Centre's Great Hall. The snakelike stream is 91.4 metres long, and winds along a path that takes up most of the Solar Patio, outside the Great Hall. The piece is made from 116 granite slabs from India, and 8 nearly perfect hemispherical or hemiellipsoidal black domes carved from boulders imported from China. The highly polished domes are similar, in appearance, to the domes used to house surveillance cameras.
Along some of the curves of the path there are also nicely polished smooth round glass pebbles, in variously coloured translucent glass.
Biography
Stacy Levy uses the language of landscape and art to tell the ecological story of site. Her projects reveal the sometime hidden natural world in the urban environment. Stacy’s work seamlessly integrates the beauty of art with site design to create memorable places alive with nature and sensation. Her projects distill the essence of nature and reveal its processes to the user. Stacy works closely with building architects, landscape architects, engineers, horticulturalists and soil scientists to create artworks that allow natural systems like the infiltration of rainwater, to function and thrive. Through a lyrical approach to natural science, Levy blends an understanding of sustainable design and ecological concepts and harnesses the ephemeral changes of weather and light with the lasting presence of sculpture.From rivers to runoff, Levy has explored the many facets of water: urban watersheds, storm water, hydrologic patterns and water treatment. One of her current projects for the City of Yonkers' waterfront - incorporates the use of LED technology to visually manifest the ebb and flow of the Hudson River tide. Ms. Levy has completed numerous rainwater pieces including a watershed rain terrace for Penn State University's new Arboretum, and rain garden for Springside School
Springside School
Springside School is a private, all-girls school in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood, in the Northwest section of Philadelphia in the United States...
with the Philadelphia Water Department
Philadelphia Water Department
The Philadelphia Water Department provides integrated potable water, wastewater, and stormwater services for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and some communities in Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery Counties...
and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society is a nonprofit organization that promotes horticulture-related events and community activities. It is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
. She has public commissions in New York, Seattle, Philadelphia, Tampa, New Jersey, Canada and Niigata, Japan.
Life
She studied at the Architectural Association School of ArchitectureArchitectural Association School of Architecture
The Architectural Association School of Architecture, more usually known as the AA, is an architectural school in London, United Kingdom...
.
She graduated from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
with a BA in Sculpture, studied at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and graduated from the Tyler School of Art
Tyler School of Art
The Stella Elkins Tyler School of Art, usually just referred to as Tyler School of Art is Temple University's school of art, which confers BFA and MFA degrees. The school was originally founded by sculptors Stella Elkins Tyler and Boris Blai on a separate 14-acre estate in Elkins Park...
at Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
with a MFA in Sculpture.
Awards
- 1992 Pew Fellowships in the ArtsPew Fellowships in the ArtsThe Pew Fellowships in the Arts is an organization established by the Pew Charitable Trusts in 1991 which awards grants to Philadelphia-area artists. The grants provide artists with an economic freedom that presents the opportunity to focus on their individual practices over a considerable period...
- 1999 Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
- 2001 Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation grant