DAKOTA WARREN

I consider "Hydrolith" to be my masterpiece. No previous commission has tested my experience and expertise to the degree that this project had. The sheer size and weight of this artwork posed its own set of technical challenges, but the true achievement was the development of the delicate and subtle specifications needed to realize my design goal.

Like "Sea Dream" and "Solar Tide," my primary objective was to create a piece of artwork that would inspire its viewers to spontaneously come in, jump in the pool and go for a swim — appreciated close up as well as from a distance. I want to draw special attention to the linear design made by the physical joints between the blocks and tiles, and the subtle asymmetry of the two monuments that lend a distinctive organic quality to the piece.

When designing art in public places I look for ways to promote community ownership of the artwork. Here, I held a community ceramic workshop with neighborhood families: soft raw clay tiles and hundreds of small toys, tools and spare parts to alter their shapes, creating a treatment for the large concrete planter in front of the building — and jump-starting a sense of ownership of the artwork in the community.

"Hydrolith" was completely self-fabricated and installed, with a certified conservator hired to review and approve all of my construction plans: high-fire sculpture body clay for the Bay Area's wet, occasionally freezing climate, and composite concrete-and-ceramic blocks anchored to the poured substrate with stainless steel pins and epoxy. I expect "Hydrolith" will remain intact even if California recedes into the Pacific Ocean.

Though the piece has unsecured 24-hour street access, it has not been vandalized in any way since its completion in 2009.

In 2001, the Mainplace Merced public art project was my first large-scale public art commission — at the age of 22, in my home town.

I remember walking past the site on the way to my nighttime telemarketing job when I saw the four huge, blank panels and realized this was the location of that big public art commission everyone was talking about. I sat on the steps of the federal building across the street in the rain and stared at the wall long enough to make me late for work. When I arrived at my desk I produced a sketchbook, as I did every night, and began to draw my concepts for this project. The whole process took about 30 minutes.

Near the end of the selection process only me and veteran public artist John Pugh were in competition for the entire project. The city's redevelopment agency decided to split it — four panels for me at $56,000, and the remaining four for John Pugh at $100,000. It was because of this that I met John Pugh and eventually worked with him at his Los Gatos studio for the next four or five years — a milestone in my development as an artist. He remains a good friend and creative influence to this day.

On September 11, 2001, I was in the midst of installing "Omnicycle," the left-center panel. Overcome by the events of that day, I immediately redesigned the yet-to-be-installed far right panel to memorialize 9/11. The agency insisted I proceed as planned — and I later realized they were right: a 9/11 memorial should be its own commission, one other artists could compete for.

Having been strictly a painter up until this point, I had never even laid hands on a ceramic tile — or a power tool for that matter. I hired another mentor, Hans Mainz, a well-known Santa Barbara building contractor and yacht builder, and his company made sure every aspect of fabrication and installation went off without a hitch. Each panel has very specific conceptual content, though I generally refrain from sharing it — to keep from contaminating the viewer's own perception of the artwork's meaning.

More than two decades later this artwork has never been vandalized and looks as good as it did on the day of unveiling.

"Solar Tide" was commissioned by the City of Mesquite, Texas in 2005. I won this commission while living in New York City and decided to move back to Los Angeles to fabricate it.

Over years of working as a studio assistant directly with trompe l'oeil artist John Pugh, I had developed a concept for illusionary ceramic murals that would combine traditional trompe l'oeil painting with complex linear perspective. The Vanston Pool was the perfect location to implement the idea: the overwhelming majority of the surface is flat, made up of very large ceramic tiles painted with glaze to give the illusion of depth, with the actual physical joints of the tiles lending linear perspective that reinforces the painted illusion.

Some of the tiles are over 30 inches long, so the entire surface was custom made from scratch, with special templates to ensure each tile landed in its correct position. The painting is layers of ceramic glaze and underglaze; expansion joints compensate for the different colored tiles conducting heat differently as the building settles.

I learned one particularly hard lesson on this project: never let the artwork out of your sight. Days before installation, the rented moving van holding the entire completed piece was stolen in front of the pottery factory — the story made the local Los Angeles television news. The van was recovered; the artwork was not. I am very lucky that Mike Templeton and the Mesquite Arts Council were so supportive: I re-fabricated the entire piece out of pocket and continued the installation with only a 30-day delay. Some of these images show my brothers Dustin and DJ Warren helping me with the re-fabrication, double time.