Lake
public art
Everyday People, 2003
Pat Ward Williams, artist
Focusing on these daily travels Pat Ward Williams presents life-size photographic portraits of people caught in the moment of everyday gestures. Embedded in glass panels along the east and west street level mezzanines, these high contrast black and white images are set against a background of colored glass. The glass actually changes color as the viewer's position shifts, allowing the background material to generate subtly changing flashes of color and create an interaction with the audience.
The gestural photographic images include people actively pointing, waving, laughing, talking, reaching, rushing, scolding, waiting, daydreaming, looking left and right. As the viewer moves along the mezzanine their life-sized reflections blend with the life sized photographs to produce a moving dialogue between the actual and the illustrated.
About the Images:
An invitation was made to the public at large to attend a photo shoot and possibly be selected to become immortalized as one of the subjects portrayed in the station. Over 150 people answered the casting call at the Northwest Armory center for the Arts in Pasadena. Artist and photographer Pat Ward Williams encouraged residents to bring a hat or other personal item to let their personalities shine through, and shine they did.
It is the artist's desire to continue this window treatment along Lake Avenue, currently within the proposed station betterment project. Passing cars would then be engaged by a colorful light show, creating a sense of anticipation for the Metro Gold Line Experience.
