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Upwells – by Stephen Luecking

1992

Granite, bronze and cast iron / Spire is 40 ft tall.

Location: Center quad of North Science Campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Commissioned by John Needles Chester Fund and the Illinois Capital Development Board (CDB) Percent for Art Program. A location-specific, public, environmental sculpture won design awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1992 and 1995.

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This piece is a Solar Meridian Calendar.The spire functions as a sundial which points to marker wells at local Solar Noon on the Winter and Summer Solstices and on the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes. A tube embedded in the back sphere allows visitors to sight on the tip of the spire to locate the Polar Star.

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Gyrator – by Stephen Luecking

1990

The sculpture’s concrete base features noon and seasonal markers
that measure the daily rotation of earth and the annual orbit of the sun.

Commission from Art Program of the State of Illinois

Location: Giant City State Park, Makanda, Illinois.

“Gyrator” takes the form of a synthesis between giant top and a gyroscope. Alignments built into the concrete pad record the gyrations of the heavens as created by the circadian and annual motion of the earth. The sun marks noon each day as a disk of light falls between two parallel lines cut into the concrete. The same disk of light rings bronze plaques embedded in the concrete at the start of each season.