Lead Pencil StudioMaryhill Double

Site-specific installation at Columbia Gorge – Summer 2006

Funded by Creative Capital Foundation

In 1914 an eccentric railroad land baron began construction on a concrete Georgian Style mansion overlooking a remote portion of the Columbia river in Washington state.  His vision for a Quaker community around his house and 6,000 acres of arid ranch property was never realized before his death.  However, the Museum opened in 1940, 9 years after his death with one of the largest collections of Rodin sculptures.

This site-specific installation created a ghost double of the interior architectural volume of the original museum, across the Columbia river Gorge into Oregon.  The new structure is fabricated with ordinary scaffolding and blue construction netting.  Viewers were able to experience the piece in isolation, ascend the stairway and circumnavigate the exterior at their will, without direction or oversight.  This work stood along the basalt cliffs, staring back at its double, for a three months during the windswept months of summer.