Decker

The ongoing public art tour takes us back to the Portland State campus yet again. This time we're taking a look at Decker, the large ceramic wall sculpture at the entrance to PSU's Millar Library. It was created by Geoffrey Pagen for the library's early 1990s expansion. The Public Art Archive description (which I doubt is an artist statement, given that the author wasn't sure if it's ceramic or not):

This piece is comprised of rectangular sections of flat, perhaps ceramic material that has been painted in deep blue, red, turquoise, and black. A pattern seems to emerge from their painted surfaces. Pieces vary in height, and they are arranged in such a way that they resemble a xylophone that stretches a significant length down the curved wall upon which they are mounted.

On a semi-related note, I probably ought to stop thinking of the expansion as the "new" part of the library. It was under construction while I was in school (and the existing library was loud and kind of dusty as a result), but at this point it's older than most of the students studying there. So "new" is probably not the right word anymore.