SLHS Students Create New Public Art for Lake Thoreau

Public art is returning to the spillway on Lake Thoreau.

For the third straight year, South Lakes High School art students have created a structure that will decorate the lake for several months. The project has become an annual one after a local resident thought the concrete platform would be an ideal place for artwork, he worked with — and helped fund — the South Lakes students.

The students have incorporated elements of physics and engineering in all three works, thereby taking on the name “the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math).

The SLHS STEAM Team’s 2016 sculpture is titled “Simon.” It pays tribute to Reston’s founder, Bob Simon, who died last year at age 101.

From the project’s mission statement:

Inspired by Robert E. Simon’s Seven Principles of Community, Simon shows that beauty, both structural and natural, is a necessity of a good life and should be fostered. The house structure represents how the hospitality of Reston draws people into the community, its warm colors creating an inviting atmosphere, and the curtain + window illustrating Reston’s welcoming nature.

Reston is our home, and the house serves as a representation of such. The pieces radiating out from the center express an organic shape that changes the way the structure is viewed to communicate something that is less industrial and more attune to nature and the form it takes, like roots of a tree.

The gradient emphasizes the diversity of the people within our community, who come from many different walks of life but still intend to be part of one single entity. The white accents draws the eye towards the structure and represents the bright impression of the inside view.

The project installation began Wednesday and will continue Thursday. The sculpture will have special evening lighting that will make it visible in the dark, said SLHS art teacher Marco Rando.

There will be an opening reception/dedication of the project on Monday, July 25.