artd350 • digital drawing

Where Jefferson Street meets West 15th Avenue in SW Eugene, the rectangular grid of residential neighborhood blocks morphs into diagonal gravel paths that skirt around the Lane Events Center and its associated buildings—the Lane County Historical Museum, the Wheeler Pavilion, and the Lane County Ice rink. To the south lies Jefferson City Park. The Fern Ridge bike trail kicks off here too, but before entering into the wide expanse of trees, grass, and trails, visitors are greeted by a tall and ugly concrete wall.

This wall is probably about 12 feet high, surrounding an array of tall electrical structures that look similar to the inside of a computer hard-drive. This area is about the size of a block, but more like a trapezoid than a rectangle. The wall is gray and covered with lighter and darker blotches of paint—most likely there to cover up unwanted graffiti. Segments of metal piping border the wall in some areas, probably to discourage mischievous kids from trying to enter. Red and black signs are posted that read “DANGER” and “HIGH VOLTAGE” in large, bold, all-caps letters.

This space has the feel and energy of any industrial site, but its placement caught my interest. Planted next to an expansive natural environment, multiple community-based centers, and homes for college kids and families, it seems to interrupt the natural flow of life and living in this neighborhood.
While researching for this project, I used the street artist Banksy as inspiration for how to go about finding a space for a site-specific drawing. Much of Banksy’s work carries some kind of undertone or commentary—usually political or subversive in some way. But my favorite part of his street art is his straightforward and pun-like imagery. He uses simple images that exist like a one-line joke, whether they’re alone or interacting with a specific object or environment.

So I started off with the latter idea in mind, looking for a space with a physical object I could use to interact with my drawing. The pipe segments surrounding the wall I described are held up by wooden posts, and look like small tunnels. I walked along the right side of the wall and pipes until the pipe segments stopped, and I felt an expectation for them to either continue or to dip into the ground or into the wall. This is where imagination takes the wheel.

I will admit that the concept for this drawing arrived later than the drawing itself. Upon seeing these pipe segments, I immediately thought of the colorful, tubular hamster cage attachments that are adjustable and fun (at least for the hamster’s human owner) to play with. I sourced several of these images from Google’s image search to use as a reference, and drew a “life-sized” hamster-cage continuation of this territorial/boundary piping.

When considering the immediate site and its surrounding natural/community-based/residential environment, I find that this drawing speaks to this space more clearly than I realized when I chose it. Aesthetically, the pipes and their colorful and tubular drawn counterparts actually resemble the structure of the electrical plant inside the walls. On a more conceptual level, the drawing—this colorful and playful but contained and directional hamster home—acts as a link between the idea of industrial infrastructure and that of a natural, residential living space.

If I were to install this drawing in the real space, I would have two options: I would find actual hamster cage attachments to install directly onto the end of the pipe, or I would make a two-dimensional drawing that would be viewed from one perspective only. The nature of the 2D drawing requires only one viewing perspective, as it would look warped and disproportionate from other angles.

If installed, I imagine that passers-by would chuckle at this interaction between life, nature, and contained structure.