"Harbor Fog" by Ross Miller, a Boston Monument

Harbor Fog
Ross Miller
Granite ,steel, glass.

Ross Millers sculpture “Harbor Fog”, mysteriously and subtly reminds us of the the commercial importance, the danger,the history of the Boston Harbor and its islands. This modern interactive sculptor composed of granite stone taken from ancient Boston wharfs incorporates the skills of electricians, LED lighting, plumbing, motion detectors, as well as marine bronze.

A detailed list of key components of this pedestrian interactive structure follows:

21 Granite seawall stones, discovered and salvaged from wharves uncovered during Central Artery construction, form a boat-shaped sculptural landscape with openings to invite one into he interior space.
3 buoy markers, built of stainless steel and naval bronze, inspired by Boston Harbor navigational buoys.
12 motions sensors - ultrasonic sensors used for industrial control systems and additional infrared and microwave sensors cue fog, light and sound.
72 high pressure water fog nozzles used in the industrial cooling industry.
12 color Blast LED fixtures,provide over 16.7 million colors,controlled by IP addressable digital sequencer.
DIgital data processor, timers, astronomical clock, control software, to interpret pedestrian motion and control system response.
Digital sound, provides on the hour bells and sound sequences cued by motion sensors .



Ross Miller's ideas evolve by examining the site’s ecological and social history, patterns of pedestrian activity, quality of light, and proposed future uses in order to create public artwork that makes direct connection with the site, heightening one’s experience of being in that specific place. Sited in publicly accessible locations - urban squares and parks, in schools, subway tunnels, along highways and over city streets - these projects evolve through collaboration with local residents, school and community groups, planners, architects, landscape architects and other artists. The projects range from urban and architectural scale installations to intimate pedestrian scale sculptures.

Harbor Fog sculptor's, lighting work, more decorative in nature, has been developed by Miller from an original system developed from steel cable, net and commercial electric fixtures. These light installations contribute to urban experience in the dark cold times - at night and in the winter. At night the artworks appear to float due to fog mist emitted from the sculptor.

This Interactive artwork is located along the harbor side pedestrian walkway of Greenway Parcel 17, between the Aquarium and Rowes Wharf.

Granite seawall stones, salvaged from nearby piers, form a boat-shaped sculptural landscape with openings to invite pedestrians into an interior space. Here three vertical sculptural beacons, inspired by Boston Harbor navigational buoys, contain multiple fog nozzles, LED light sources, and a sound system.
Motion sensors at the top of the sculptures respond to pedestrian activity to initiate changing patterns of fog mist and light. Gusts of wind redirect the fog, colors change with seasons and ambient light conditions. Pedestrian activity, picked up by multiple motion sensors, creates changing effects that encourage people to move, explore and play with the sculptural buoy elements.
During warmer months the evening fog is illuminated by changing color progressions of LED light. In winter, with the fog turned off, light sparkles from within and projects out from the stainless steel beacon sculptures. In stormy weather light projecting from the sculptures projects patterns on snow-covered landscape.
Fog and lighting systems are industrial components designed for low maintenance and long operational life. Annual operation of the Harbor Fog water system follows seasonal schedule for park irrigation maintenance. The lighting and motion control systems operate throughout the year.

Concept and design by artist Ross Miller over a three year period with support for the Central Artery/Tunnel Project and Mass Turnpike Authority. Over 85 people have been evolved in the realization of this project: mechanical and electrical engineers, site construction workers, union tradespeople, steel fabricators and installers, digital and 3d model makers and management staff.
Project Team

Ross Miller,  Project Artist - concept, design development & 
                     details, shop drawings, fabrication & on-site     
                     installation direction

Project concept development began in the spring of 2005; site landscape work May - September, 2007; water system elements installed September - October, 2008; electrical sensors & programming April - May, 2009.

May individuals have contributed expertise and energy to the realization of this project, following is a partial listing:
(in approximate order of appearance)

Fred Yalouris  - Arch & Urban Design, MHD
Genaise Gonzalez - MHD Assistant
Wharf District Task Force
Steve Anderson - Authorized Rep. B/PB
Bob Masys  - Assistant PE, CA/T
Dennis Carmichael - Site LA, EDAW
Kristi Farnsworth - Site LA, EDAW
John Powell - Lighting Engineer, Parsons Brinkerhoff
John Calnan - Senior Engineer, FST
Drew Simmons - Electrical Engineering
Bob Redfern - FCN Plumbing Engineer
John Copley - Landscape Architect
Sean Sanger  - Landscape documents
Steve Sailing - Site details and specs
Luba Bezverkhny - plumbing specification
Brian Blethen - CA/T Accounting
Beatrice Ward - Models, large and small
David Brosnan - Structural Integrity Engineering Group

Ann Gorczyca - PE, Manager of Park Construction, MHD
Scott Wilson - site Installation, MHD
Dan Mullaly - MHD, site electrician, MHD
Mario Mazzeo - site plumbing, MHD
John Pagani - CA/T PE
Mike Flynn - Parcel 17 PE
Jim Barrett, CA/T

Kurt Maley - Fabrication Guru
Steve Baez - Fabrication Lead
Greg - Machine tool programming
Sam Wainwright - CAD Visualization
Ted Farnham - Lighting tech assistance
John Melillo - Color Kinetics
Andrew Hutcheson -  CAD site visualization
Ross Peterson - Mee Industries
Ajay Dighe - Mee industries
Kevin Randall - Manifold CAD
Paul DeRocher - Control Systems, programming & site work
Chris Souza - ALPS lighting & control systems

"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us " intends to add this most resent Boston Moument to our book. Our book can be purchased on Amazon.com and www.bostonbronzeandstone.com

Boston Mouments:Frogs fishing on Boston Common

Fishing in the Frog Pond
2003, Boston Common / Lafayette Mall David Phillips, Sculptor
Bronze
This kid friendly sculpture has always been a delight for me and every other kid who has visited Boston Commons’ Frog Pond. Two 4-foot-high bronze frog sculptures watch over the winter skaters and summer waders at the Frog Pond on Boston Common. From their perch on the eastern end of the pond, they look across Charles Street to the trees in the Boston Public Garden. According to Joseph Bagley, if you were standing on the same spot 8,000 years earlier, the pond would still be there inhabited by real, not bronze, frogs. In place of the skaters and waders, you’d find indigenous peoples living around the pond, and thousands of clamshells would be visible, scattered along a shoreline reaching as far as Charles Street. Bagley, a recent archaeology graduate, easily paints this picture—the fruit of senior work for distinction, funded by UROP, in which he studied artifacts excavated from the area around the Frog Pond. 
Purchase of "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us" on Amazon.com or www.bostonbronzeandstone.com

Boston Historical Monuments, Spring Lane Plaque

SpringLane Plaque

Unknown Artist

year 1907

Bronze

This plaque is dedicated to the first and most important fresh water spring discovered in Boston. This fresh water source was shared by William Blaxton who first resided on Beacon Hill. Blaxton or Blackstone who educated Governor John Winthrop about the "sweet water"source that enabled the new immigrants from England to establish a successful Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.

This was Boston's water source for many years until nearby and not so nearby reservoirs such as our Quabbin Reservoir is our primary source today.

"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us"intends to add this Boston Monument to our next edition of our book.

Boston Monuments celebrate The July 4 th "Pops" at the Esplanade.

Every July 4Th The Boston Pops celebrates our county's independence with traditional American patriotic music.

Every day of the year our Boston monuments guard our esplanade with some of the most memorable sculptures depicting our Nation's and Boston historical leaders. George Patton, WWII hero and Charles Devens, civil war hero both of military leadership. Both men are comemerated as Boston stautes populating the Boston Esplanade.

Arthur Fiedler's creation of the Boston Pops is memorialized by Hemlicks sculptural head which celebrates another form of heroic leadership; musical foresight.

The sculptor, Helmick, depicts Fiedler’s forceful musical passion embodied in a monument constructed of granite and layers of aluminum, an exception to Boston's theme of bronze and stone sculptures, but Fiedler was an exception in symphonic conductors.

Famed and beloved conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra for fifty years, 1929-1979, Arthur Fiedler founded the free Esplanade concerts still performed in Boston’s summer evenings

at the nearby Hatch Shell.

Cambridge sculptor Ralph Helmick earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1974 and an M.F.A. from the Boston Museum School in 1980. This monumental head is built up of cut out layers of aluminum in varying thicknesses, a distinctive technique originated by Helmick.

Joe Gallo, author, of "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us"celebrates our country's birthday with another Boston hero immortalized in Hemlick's monument to Arthur Fiedler.

Vendome Firemen's Monument Remembered June 17th. a Boston Monument.

Vendome Firemen Monument (1997)
Commonwealth Ave Mall Dartmouth Street Ted Clausen and Peter White, Sculptors Bronze / Granite
A reminder of impending death penetrates and surrounds me as I approach this work of art, this memorial for all Firemen who risk their lives for all of us each day that they stand watch.

When that Bell Rings We are All the Same, We are a Team, We have One Job to do. FF Thomas W. Beck with Engine Co. 32 March 22, 1937 – June 17, 1972
2:35 PM There is smoke in the Café of the Hotel Vendome on Commonwealth Ave / Dartmouth
2:40 PM Fire Fighters arrive, finding smoke and flames
coming from the third and fourth floors
Fire Fighter Joseph F. Boucher, JRS January 10, 1944-June 17, 1972
2:45 PM District Four Reports Box 1571 a working fire 2:46 PM A second alarm is struck
New Vendome Building in Background

Lt. Thomas J. Carroll Engine Co. 32
May 18, 1925-June 17, 1972
3:02 PM A third alarm is struck.

We save lives and property. We are no heroes. We do what we love. We do our jobs.
- Fire Fighter Charles E. Dolan Ladder Co. 13 September 6, 1924-June 17, 1972
We don’t talk about the tragic fires. It would be too much. We go home to our families.

3:06 PM A fourth alarm is struck.
Lt. John E. Hanbury, Jr. Ladder Co. 13 May 20, 1926 - June 17, 1972
“Our families know that each day could be our last. It’s just part of the work.”
FF Richard B. Magee Engine Co. 33 September 17, 1932 - June 17, 1972
“The worst is death, but you learn to let go. You wouldn’t be able to do your job.”
5:28 PM Without warning four floors of the Vendome collapse, burying twenty-five firefighters

“There is the unknown in every fire. You do your job, follow the plan: still something can go wrong.”
FF Paul Murphy Engine Co. 32 March 5, 1936 - June 17, 1972
2:00 AM Fire Fighters search the rubber until all are accounted for. Nine fire fighters are dead, sixteen are injured. “Investigators reveal that the Vendome did not collapse because of the fire, but from structural weakness.”

FF Joseph P. Sanivk Ladder Co. 13 August 8, 1924 - June 17, 1972

Sometimes you have to say “There’s nothing more we could have done.”
Losing a fire fighter brings back every other loss.”
Taken from the Stone

Boston is America, America is Boston
"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us"can be purcased through Amazon.com

Boston Monuments: Boston Public Library Copley Square Talk

Joe Gallo spoke at the Rabb Lecture Hall last Thursday for the "Never To Late Club series". Joe met new friends and reunited with some of his Boston Monuments both inside Boston Public Library and outside in Copley Square. Branchette and Faun were dancing on the water within Fredrick MacMonnies courtyard water fountain. Sir Henry Vane by Fredrick MacMonnies was there greeting me at the original entrance of this McKim Italian Rennasance edifice. Daniel Chester French's low relief Panel Doors Truth and Romance, Knowledge and Wisdom and Music and Poetry were there as well. Guarding the Library's street entrance of the BPL, Bela Pratts' Art and Science sit contemplatively in the sun.

The only square in America named after an American artist, John Copley by Lewis Cohen stands talk outside on busy Copley Square.

Nancy Shon's Tortoise and Hare racing to the Marathon finishing line of life. Bob Shure's Boston Marathon Memorial Monument celebrating for all men, all women and all disabled athelets their victories.

Augustus Saint -Gaudens' Phillip Brooks stands tall with Jesus outside, Henry Hobbs Richardson's masterpiece, Trinity Church.

Finally and sadly a most recent monument is emerging in Copley Square, The Boston Bombing Memorial waits to be conceived with Bronze and Stone.

All of the above artists and monuments inspired and directed me in that day's Boston Bronze and Stones talk.

The inspiration of the Bobby Orr Moument for the Boston Bruins team.

Government Center / TD Gardens, Cause Way Street H. Weber, Sculptor Bronze / Granite

Boston’s great Bobby Orr serves as inspiration for all who visit the TD Garden. Orr and the Boston Bruins, the 2011 Stanley Cup Champions, are honored in this monument to triumph, victory, athletic accomplishment, and team spirit.

Under a clear blue sky on a cool spring afternoon, in the shadow of TD Garden and in front of thousands of adoring fans, friends and family, Bobby Orr unveiled the 800-pound bronze statue commemorating his famous overtime goal against the St. Louis Blues that gave the Boston Bruins the 1970 Stanley Cup 40 years ago.

The ultimate team player, Orr was thrilled to learn that the base of the statue bears a replica of that section of the Stanley Cup that bears the names of all his teammates, coaches and team officials.

“There is nothing more valuable in life than the love and support from friends and family,” Orr said. “That makes me the richest man in the world.” The statue stands at the West end of TD Garden, about 20 yardsfrom Causeway Street, which Harry Sin- den, the coach of the 1970 Bruins and later general manager and president of the team, suggested to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino be renamed “Bobby Orr Place.”

Orr was joined by former teammates Johnny Bucyk, Derek Sanderson, Ken Hodge Sr., Johnny “Pie” McKenzie, Don Marcotte and Gary Doak. Orr gave spe- cial thanks to Kathy Bailey, the widow ofGarnet “Ace” Bailey who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. (Read more: http://www.foxnews. com/sports/2010/05/10/orr-statue-un- veiled-flight-forever/#ixzz1877IiEtX, Dec. 14, 2010).