Wilsonville Spokesman Online

Art for the soul

Wilsonville High School's first public art installation carries a unique Doernbecher connection

• By: Josh Kulla  
• Published: 2/18/2010 2:07:01 PM

Photo By: Josh KullaLife Tree
Life Tree, a sculpture by Jesse Swickard and Laurel Hagner, now stands outside Wilsonville High School.

Wilsonville High School was certainly not the intended destination for this work of art.

But that’s ultimately where “Life Tree,” a steel and glass sculpture celebrating the lives of young patients at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, found a permanent home.

“It’s trying to describe growth or life, and the whole process of living,” said artist Jesse Swickard, who completed the sculpture last September. “Some of the children might not be with us anymore, so it’s really a touching piece.”

The story behind “Life Tree,” which was installed at the south end of the high school in November, only adds to that feeling.

Originally, Swickard was commissioned to create a sculpture on behalf of a donor who wanted to give it to Doernbecher, Portland’s famed children’s hospital. He was teaching art classes at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in downtown Portland with partner and glass artist Laurel Hagner a little over three years ago when work got underway. 

“We developed that piece in the class together with students we had at the time,” Swickard said. “And we also had a volunteer to help us with children’s art and design. We basically took the children’s drawings and translated them into a three-dimensional glass block, I think you’d call it a glass tile.”

But just as the project was taking shape, the situation shifted and funding for the project was withdrawn. That was 2006.

“Life Tree” proceeded to sit in Swickard’s studio in the hills outside Wilsonville, where it remained untouched and unfinished until last summer.

“My original thought would have been to finish it and donate to Doernbecher,” Swickard said. “I tried that route, and its hard to go back onto a project after you work on it a while and it just sits.” 

But when Christopher Shotola-Hardt, head of Wilsonville High School’s art department, caught wind of what was going on, “Life Tree” gained a  new lease on life.

“I kept seeing that in his studio, and enjoyed the organic form and was curoius as to what the little frames were intended to house,” said Shotola-Hardt, who worked with Swickard throughout the summer of 2009 on a separate sculpture for the West Linn-Wilsonville School District’s CREST facility.

Intrigued by the sculpture that had been set aside, with wavy steel tubing resembling a tree and branches flowing in a stiff breeze, he saw potential from the start. Blocks of colorful glass emblazoned with images created by Doernbecher patients provide contrast.

But his interest really was piqued when he learned the story behind “Life Tree” and its connection to Doernbecher.

“I immediately thought, ‘Jesse, did you know that at our school that’s our main community service project.’” he said, referring to Wilsonville High School’s annual Doernbecher Week, which has raised over $77,000 for the hospital since the high school opened in 1995.

Things moved quickly from there. Motivated to see the project through, Shotola-Hardt quickly arranged for grant funding to help finish the project and install it at Wilsonville High School. Without that backing, Swickard said, it’s doubtful things would have turned out the way they did.

“This one was pretty involved,” Swickard said. “Once you start trying to finish it out of your own pocket it gets pretty challenging. So Christopher was pretty amazing in that regard to get funding to help with the installation.”

School officials also proved receptive to the idea, including Wilsonville High School principal Andy Sommer and members of the West Linn-Wilsonville School Board.
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21 glass tiles are included in Life Tree, and whittling the finalists down to a manageable number proved difficult, Swickard said, particularly when he realized that some of the young artists no longer are alive.

“Some of the children might not be with us anymore, so it’s really a touching piece,” he said. “There’s a leaf I added to the top to represent blowing in the wind and to give it some movement. It’s a really neat place for it because there’s so much light for it. Each tile gets split up differently.”

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