Hidden Habitats

Artist

Joe McGrane

Year

2002

Location

Nix Farm

Description

The homes of burrowing animals are rarely seen and often displaced by development. Hidden Habitats reveals some common creatures found in the area against the backdrop of their natural habitat. It is a sculptural environment that engages the visitor in activities associated with wildlife discovery while creating habitat using architectural forms and materials. 

The sculpture consists of a curved sandstone wall that erodes into the landscape creating cover for small creatures and pockets for plantings and wind-born seed collection. The wall supports four animal "burrows."  Transparent, cut glass images of a common field mouse, rabbit, and skunk are contained in 3' long reflective steel tubes with protective acrylic lens covers.  The colored glass images combine with natural back lighting and the curved, reflective interior of the tubes to create playful distortions or "ghosts" of these secretive creatures. The fox burrow is envisioned as a polished stone outline placed in a shadowed recess in the wall face. Its glowing eyes will be back-lit with daylight and meadow views.  The "burrows" pass through the wall at a height of only two feet above grade so viewers are required to stoop and peer into them, as if looking into a secret hiding place. The accompanying water basin plays off that illusive imagery. Its sandstone basin is cut in receding contours to the water source. Like a drying puddle, it reflects the temporal nature of water in the arid plains environment.

Hidden Habitats combines the appreciation and discovery of often unseen prairie animals with the creation of useful habitat.  It links the Nix Farm Habitat Garden to its broader landscape setting and puts it into context with open space issues of the day.

Photos

View inside one of the tubes of Hidden Habitats