The sculpture, The Two Electras, frames the entry to the redesigned historic Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport. The pairing of the sculptures in the artist designed airport plaza activates a central place in the plaza between the airport entry and the surrounding area for passengers who are traveling through, waiting for rides, or relaxing. The nascent 20th Century forms of aeronautical engineering developed by Lockhead at Burbank Airport were inspirations for the shapes and volumes of the sculptures. The sculpture’s title, The Two Electras, references the Electra 10 designed by Kelly Johnson, at Lockheed and flown by Amelia Earhart, when she disappeared over the Pacific. The Two Electras transform the streamlined figures of aeronautical design into a more ethereal order of form by introducing transparency and light into their volumes. Constructed of 3/8” stainless steel rods one shape resides within another, describing two transparent forms who’s the inner and outer silhouettes, combine and recombine with one another creating moiré patterns, with the shifting position of the viewer. As the sun sets and the LED spectral lights color the inner and outer shapes with complimentary colors, a slowly changing light show evolves as a dialogue between the inner and outer shapes and the pairing of the two sculptures in the plaza. The sculpture’s ovoid shapes and transparency revealing one form resting within another offer an atmospheric space and an archetypal image of an ethereal union of two entities. The Two Electras reference the beauty and mystery of the of aeronautical forms designed at Burbank Airport marking it as a site for significant developments in the history of early 20th century flight and a hub for air travel in the 21st Century.
