Ask Margaret
by Margaret Word Burnside
What can you tell me about the tall, rounded
art piece on West Kennedy near Westshore
Mall in Tampa?
Kenetic Ring was created by award-winning sculptor
Catherine Woods, the owner of C glass Studios in
St. Petersburg. She is nationally known for her large-scale,
primarily architectural glass and metal, ever-changing
works. She designs her pieces to be interactive with, as
well as reflective of, the environments in which they are
placed. Catherine’s public art pieces have been featured
in Sculpture Review and Public Art Review magazines. in
addition, her work has been recognized by Americans for
the Arts in its prestigious public art competition, Year in
Review. As with her other sizable sculptural installations
that can be seen in St. Petersburg and Bradenton, Florida;
reno, nevada; kansas City, kansas; St. louis, Missouri
and other places, Kenetic Ring appears to continually
deconstruct and re-form itself as you move past or
around it. Despite heavy traffic in the area, the art work’s
placement on the median at Memorial Highway and 5100
West kennedy Boulevard in tampa allows its seemingly
transformative capabilities to be appreciated.
the dynamic three-dimensional Kenetic Ring sculpture
is 24-feet high, 11-feet wide, four-feet deep in bright colors
of red, yellow, blue and green. it was fashioned out of
painted, laminated and tempered architectural “float”
glass, which was fabricated by the prestigious Franz
Mayer of Munich, germany. Kenetic Ring’s distinctive,
circular, pinwheel-like design consists of four curved
modular glass panels that are shaped like abbreviated
letter Cs, which have been mounted in coated steel and
concrete. each of the light-catching, seemingly movable
glass panels was silk-screened by Woods with powdered
glass, rather than printing ink. the panels were then re-fired
in large kilns at high temperatures in order to melt the
powdered glass and to permanently fuse it onto the glass.
this process enables the finished art piece to safely withstand
the elements that are inherent in outdoor installations.
the images that she silk-screened onto the glass are
abstracted interpretations of in-motion photos that depict
various aspects of the Westshore neighborhood.
M.L., Largo
the artist silk-screened abstracted photographic images of tampa’s
Westshore area onto the sculpture’s colorful architectural glass
panels.
94 tAMPA BAY MAgAzine MAY/JUne 2015
PHOTO: CATHERINE WOODS