Artist Patrick Shearn has been going to Burning Man for 23 years and operated the raptors in the first Jurassic Park film, but those aren’t even the most interesting things about him. Now based in Colorado, Shearn operates Poetic Kinetics, a design firm specializing in aerial public art. Through a partnership with Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, Shearn is bringing a brand new installation, Momentum, to life. Shearn’s work is captivating—you gasp when you see it for the first time, with all the undulating colors floating in mid-air. Momentum at the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden sits suspended in the air above the garden’s Lotus Pond. Redwing blackbirds flit in and out of cattails, accompanied by playful baritone of bullfrogs and the rustling of wind in the trees.
But behind the beauty is a huge amount of technical mastery, which he picked up from making installations at Burning Man and during his time operating props in the film industry. “This isn’t a hobby,” Shearn said. “It seems simple, but the rigging is very complicated.” The streamers are a thin, delicate kite fabric and the ropes are a small but mighty military-grade string that can hold up to 1600 pounds. Elevated Reflections, as the Lotus Pond part of the installation is called, only weighs about 150 pounds, despite its grandeur. It sways with the wind, evoking a firework or a blooming flower.
Patrick Shearn Brings Poetic Kinetics to Pittsburgh Botanic Garden
“When I did a site visit here, we looked all over the garden, but at the pond it’s almost like you’re doubling your money. It creates a whole new perspective on the piece. You’re seeing it from different perspectives all the time,” Shearn explained. “This little low spot is like a jewel box.” When walking around the perimeter of the pond, you can see the vibrant, shimmering colors of Shearn’s work through the green of the trees, which is a true visual delight.
At different places around the pond, the streamers change shape and form. Some of them almost touch the surface of the pond, which Shearn is perfectly okay with. When Shearn installed the piece, it started in the water and then rose up to its full iteration, so there’s no issue with getting it wet. Part of his goal is to make people more aware of the many parts of the natural world, how earth, water, and air interact with each other. “[When you see the installation], you become much more aware of the symphonic motion of wind, It really connects you to the nature around you,” he added.
From Burning Man to the Olympics
Shearn’s practice has taken him to Berlin, St. Petersburg, the Australian Gold Coast, and Beijing, as well as various locations across the United States. He had been making large-scale aerial art for Burning Man, and someone who saw his work got in touch to say they needed an artist to make an aerial puppet show for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. That was how Shearn ended up making the “Warrior and the Girl” performance in Beijing that combined sculpture, puppetry, modern dance, and animatronics.
Shearn began making public art out of two-dimensional materials with architecture students in Los Angeles. Someone had left him a truckload of Mylar film and he wasn’t sure what to do with it, so he took his students to a city park and started tinkering with ways to create something beautiful out of the film. Since then, he focuses mostly on the aerial sculpture part of his art practice through Poetic Kinetics.
Working in natural spaces makes up some of his favorite projects, though. “I love working with people in the ‘garden scene,’” Shearn said. “They’re so friendly, they’re all doing good work, breathing good air. People walk out of their office and they’re in a beautiful place.” He began bringing public art to botanical gardens and conservatories through a project with the Atlanta Botanical Gardan and later connected with Executive Director Keith Kaiser at another installation project in Boston.
An Interactive Installation for All Ages
Shearn also made a more interactive installation in the Five Senses part of the Garden grounds that’s for children. The Garden allowed children to write on the streamers six words of what plants and nature meant to them, hung at a low height so that they could easily walk through it. Adults are welcome to, as well. Inside of this installation feels like a forest of color and light, easy to see why Shearn’s work was so popular at Burning Man.
This isn’t the first time Shearn has added a written component to his work. In one iteration of Poetic Kinetics, he and his team made aerial sculpture for the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, where he allowed participants to write their messages and feelings on the fabric. “It was really very transformative. I found it erased nation borders and led to really raw human connections,” he remembered.
He later took it to the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea, where he gave people a similar prompt to write on the fabric and engage with the work. “To work for a call to action is very special to me. Spectacle is great, but as an artist to be able to move the needle is really meaningful,” Shearn said.
Public Art to Do Good
He particularly enjoys anything where he gets to see children’s inner thoughts and feelings. “I’m interested in situations where you ask children what they want for their future,” he said. “I did an installation once where I had children etch into metal what they wanted for their future, as a way of holding other generations accountable.” The streamers in the Five Senses portion of Momentum read “plants give love to my heart,” “beauty, oxygen, life” or strings of drawings of butterflies, bees, and flowers.
Shearn’s Momentum will be up through the summer, where visitors to the Botanic Garden will be able to see how it sways in the wind from the oak, cherry, and maple trees and interacts with the wildlife. The redwing blackbirds enjoy perching on the rope as if it’s another tree at the Lotus Pond, and Shearn says he values a “leave no trace” approach with his artwork in natural spaces. “I’m so happy with it. It came out exactly how I imagined,” he said. “I just want to do something good in the world.”
Story by Emma Riva
Photos courtesy of the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden
