DID YOU KNOW?
This artwork is titled “A Matter of Fiction” and was installed in front of Fairhope Public Library on 02/17/2012.
“It’s one of my favorite pieces and a wonderful way to express the importance of a library and the sense of community,” Morrison says by long distance from her studio in Birmingham, AL.
The piece weights about 5,000 pounds and will be illuminated by a dozen LED lights.
Morrison says “A Matter of Fiction” was constructed using 10 sheets of three-quarter-inch industrial-grade steel.
“The metal is gracefully bent to resemble the open pages of a book, with the jacket intricately laser-engraved to emulate the scroll patterns of a Renaissance manuscript,” she explains. “The cover panels are a light-box that will illuminate the sculpture from within and cast a warm glow on the interior pages of the book at night.”
Morrison says her sister, Anne Dixon Morrison, who lives in Fairhope, approached library director Tamara Dean to consider making the piece an addition to the library property.
“I had designed it with a library in mind,” Deedee Morrison says, “and when my sister showed the work to the director in Fairhope, it was a great fit.”
Morrison says funding for the work is by an anonymous corporate donor. The City of Fairhope prepared the concrete pedestal for the sculpture.
“We are delighted to install Deedee Morrison’s piece on the front lawn of the library,” Dean says in a news release. “The sculpture represents the open pages of a book. It is a great complement to the purpose and the history of the Fairhope Public Library and a great tribute to the culture of our community.”
“A Matter of Fiction,” inspired by illuminated manuscripts, is a visual metaphor for the many journeys of enlightenment a reader can take with a book, according to Morrison.
“The written word is the light of inspiration that allows the reader to travel the across the universe,” she says. “This sculpture is based on a wonderful literary tradition that has been carried down from the Middle Ages and Renaissance — that books are meant to preserve information and knowledge in a community.”
Deedee Morrison, a professional artist for the past decade, grew up in New Orleans and her family moved to Alabama while she was in junior high school. She attended the University of the South in Tennessee, lived in London for a time and took art classes there.
She returned to the United States, settled in Birmingham and began creating metal sculpture She now works in stone and metal, and she specializes in large public works of aluminum, steel, limestone, Lucite and solar-powered light. Her works have been exhibited and installed in permanent displays nationwide, from Clearwater, Fla., to Chattanooga, Oklahoma City and the San Juan Islands.
Working out of her studio in a turn-of-the century steel foundry and limestone quarry, she draws inspiration by the juxtaposition of the industrial with the natural environment.
“One of the reasons I love (metal sculpture) is that it’s interesting,” she says. “I love laser-engraving technology, which allows me to push the limitations of the medium, which is not airy or light. It is very heavy and static, and it doesn’t lend itself to much fluidity.
“The technology allows me to create what I think are very feminine components to a very masculine material. . . . I create a sense of lightness and fluidity into the medium.”
For more information about the artist, visit www.deedeemorrisonsculpture.com.
Information supplied by Fairhope Public Library and Deedee Morrison Studio.