AMY TRACHTENBERG : COMMISSIONS + PROJECTS : PUBLIC SPACE COMMISIONS : ASHLAND YOUTH CTR / CLEARING

Ashland Youth Center /Art and Design Workshop

2010

The art workshops included community leaders, sheriffs, firefighters, educators, social workers and elected officials. A permanent at program resides in the facility and many of the youth have become advocates and artists.

Ashland Youth Center

CLEARING at REACH 2013

Collaboration Amy Trachtenberg and Mallory Cusenbery Architect

Commissioned by Alameda County Arts Commission

Exterior building skin of porcelain and ceramic tile

90 feet x 210 feet x 33 feet

Clearing is a large installation enveloping the exterior walls of the new Ashland Youth Center. It is a continuous porcelain and ceramic tile surface in modulating tones, anchored by a two-tone color field. The artwork reinforces and amplifies the inherent rhythm of the building intensifying at the entrance with intervals of polychrome bands of color. Greens and metallics offer a sense of dappled light, luminosity and shade as experienced under a tree canopy. Wood tones carry memories of Ashland’s history of orchards. Touches of pink signal refuge and optimism, with the new youth center inviting discovery and opportunity.