By Jonathan Morales

2023年3月23日

当疫情在2020年初爆发时，萨克州立艺术学院的学生丹尼斯·贝尼特斯（Denise Benitez）感觉就像被拔掉了地毯。

她的项目和课程突然被搁置了。 她的父亲因感染COVID-19在重症监护室住了10周。 这给她的母亲带来了压力，她一生中大部分时间都在与疾病作斗争，最终于2021年2月去世。

因此，当贝尼特斯和她的同学们在2020年秋季能够恢复他们为萨克州立大学校园准备的大型公共艺术装置的工作时，这个项目成为了他们的生命线。

“Working on this sculpture made me feel more grounded, because it felt like everything else around me was basically falling apart,” said Benitez, who earned her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in 2021. “It kept me focused, it gave me a sense of responsibility, it gave me a sense of positivity.”

现在，她花了三年多的时间完成了这件作品。 The 15-foot-tall sculpture at the front of campus now greets visitors and will serve as a testament to the artists’ work, skill, and perseverance.

The sculpture, titled 支流, is in the plaza outside of the 囊状态 Welcome Center and was officially unveiled March 15.

The idea for a sculpture outside the Welcome Center came from Vice President for 学生事务 Ed Mills, who for years had watched students brave traffic to take photos next to the “博彩平台，萨克拉门托” signs near the busy J Street campus entrance.

“I kept thinking that we needed more monuments or statues to provide new options for students taking photos,” Mills said. “We were just building the new Welcome Center, and I thought that would be the perfect place for a new campus monument.”

Mills had been impressed with #罂粟, a metal, abstracted stegosaurus that students in Professor of Art Andrew Connelly’s public art course 于2018年在校园南部的一个交通圈内建造和安装.

米尔斯认为，类似的东西也可以适用于欢迎中心。 校园设施办公室包括新建筑外的雕塑空间，并提供必要的电力和基础设施。

“We have amazing students and faculty in our Art department,” Mills said. “I felt it was critical for the project to be from our students, for our students.”

康纳利和他的学生们同意接受设计和建造这个项目的挑战。

“What an amazing opportunity for students to be able to, for decades to come, say, ‘We built that. I'm a part of the legacy of this institution,’ ” Connelly said. “To have this level of connection is truly empowering.”

在2019年秋季，班级制定了三个项目提案供考虑。 A panel of faculty and staff, including Mills and 囊状态 President Robert S. Nelsen, chose 支流.

“We began construction of the project in January the next year,” Connelly said. “And now we know what happened next.”

疫情将该项目推迟到2020年秋季，当时康纳利和艺术家们回到了工作室，采取了预防措施，如在室外工作、戴口罩、尽可能地保持社交距离。

最终，这座雕塑花了三年多的时间才完成，包括贝尼特斯和其他在此期间毕业的学生在内的几名最初的学生都留在了团队中，直到完成。

“What an amazing opportunity for students to be able to, for decades to come, say, ‘We built that. 我是这个机构遗产的一部分。' ” -- Andrew Connelly, Professor of Art

项目团队的其他学生成员包括现任校友April Arnold、Matthew Pugh、Orzala Mahshour和Andrew Rosas，以及现任学生Julie Crumb。

“In many meetings I've had, I had to explain that none of this has ever been done before, and there's no map,” Connelly said. “First of all, to build a large-scale public art sculpture with students. And also, the design of any particular sculpture, there's no blueprint for that other than the blueprints that we're creating for it.”

The sculpture’s name, 支流, pays tribute to 萨克拉门托 State students, faculty, and staff while referencing the 萨克拉门托 River watershed, which is critical to the regional ecosystem.

Three ascending leaf-like forms – which draw inspiration from the California bay laurel tree –represent growth and maturation while honoring the Native Americans who first inhabited the land on which 囊状态 is located. 艺术家和校友Tam Helenske帮助创作了一场灯光秀，在晚上，灯光从雕塑内部照亮，引发呼吸的节奏。

当他们同时创建一个4英尺的模型和15英尺的模具时，学生们学习了焊接、金属加工、玻璃纤维成型和模具制作等技能。

贝尼特斯是一名自由视觉艺术家，她说她从工作中学到的东西中受益匪浅 支流。

“When I started working with my own projects more, with my own sculptures … this, alongside working on the 支流 project, I realized my work had now a certain sense of sophistication and finesse, and it was due to the skills I was learning on the (支流) project,” she said.

The sculpture’s unveiling was “a very humbling and proud moment,” Benitez said.

“For me personally, it represents a lot of the personal challenges I was experiencing in my life, and how 支流 was that safe haven for me,” she said. “I knew I was always going to come here, work on this, shut out the rest of the world and do something fun and learn.”