ARTIST STATEMENT

‘Change of Light’ is a neon mural made of blown glass Neon Signage Tubing, hand bent to the Artist’s patterns in the traditional manner by dear friend and frequent collaborator Ames Palms, of Rebel Neon. It is installed on the North exterior wall of the Session Climbing Gym building at 965 South A Street, next to Highway 101, and Highway 12, in Santa Rosa CA. ‘Change of Light’ is approximately 100’ long by 20’ tall, wrapping around the North side of the Session Building in three dimensions. The piece begins close to human scale, emerging from the walkway and lifting across the facade of the building; becoming increasingly chaotic and mountain like as it rises towards the West corner. It wraps the building, tapering off to the West on the Highway 101 side.

The installation continues a throughline of Laura Stevenson’s existing body of work, adapted to site and size. ‘Change of Light’ is at forefront a conceptual piece rooted in an exploration of advertising culture, and how it can be subverted to bring attention to the environmental challenges of our time. The mural references the light reflections as the sun rises and sets in a mountain landscape; the shapes of the depicted peaks are meant to take the personality of sight lines in the Sierra Nevada.

‘Change of Light’ is intended to act as a local landmark, providing a visual and emotional connection to the spirit of panoramic outdoor landscapes. Hopefully, it can serve as a kind of inverted ‘advertisement’ for wild nature; occupying people’s attention on behalf of the environment and preservation, rather than consumerism. The zig zag path of each individual neon line is meant to reflect the internal journey of an individual working towards a challenging goal. Each line individually follows a course of peaks, bends and valleys representing accomplishment and setback along a winding journey. These individual threads weave together to form the overall geologic face of the piece. This is meant as a reflection that positive individual actions become powerful- and contagious- when viewed through the lens of community. A group of individuals, each pulling in their own way towards a shared goal, is as capable of overcoming an impenetrable seeming obstacle as they are of creating it.

The original title (Range of Light) came from a well known John Muir quote:

“Looking eastward from the summit of Pacheco Pass one shining morning, a landscape was displayed that after all my wanderings still appears as the most beautiful I have ever beheld. At my feet lay the Great Central Valley of California, level and flowery, like a lake of pure sunshine … And from the eastern boundary of this vast golden flower-bed rose the mighty Sierra, miles in height, and so gloriously colored and so radiant, it seemed not clothed with light but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city.... Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning streaming through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls, it still seems above all others the Range of Light.”

— from The Yosemite (1912)

The artist re-titled the piece to ‘Change of Light’ in 2022, after learning about John Muir’s contribution to the removal and historical erasure of the Miwuk people indigenous to the Sierra Nevada.

CHANGE OF LIGHT

for SESSION CLIMBING completed 2022

SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA