DOLPHINS IN THE BOW STREAM - 2001
A pod of dolphins appears to swim up the side of the south-facing wall of the Hoag Hospital parking garage. The form of the dolphin bodies sits below the surface of the wall, while the fins protrude above the surface, casting strong shadows that move with the sun through the day.
Speaking about his choice of subject for this work, Van Sant re-articulated a conviction he had held for over forty years: that public art must have a connection with the communities it serves. “Newport Beach, CA,” he wrote, “is a boating community which enjoys its relationships to the dolphin.” [1]
HOAG HOSPITAL PARKING STRUCTURE WITH DOLPHINS IN THE BOW STREAM. C. 2008
HOAG HOSPITAL PARKING STRUCTURE WITH DOLPHINS IN THE BOW STREAM VISIBLE. C. 2023
HOAG HOSPITAL PARKING STRUCTURE UNDER CONSTRUCTION, WITH THE PROTRUDING FINS OF DOLPHINS IN THE BOW STREAM VISIBLE. C. 2001
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Hoag Memorial Hospital, 1 Hoag Drive, Newport Beach, CA92663
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2001
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Unknown.
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Cast concrete.
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60 ft. x 25 ft. x 4 in.
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$150,000
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Hoag Memorial Hospital.
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Extant, in situ, in good condition.
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Top and Bottom: Photographer unknown, TVS digital records.
Center: Photographer Andrea Abramovitz, 2023.
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Tony Sheets assisted Tom Van Sant on this project. The artwork was designed, and the waste molds were made in the Sheets studio in Sebastapol, CA.
“On the vertical Dolphin Wall at the Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, CA, I used a special technique to bring the dorsal fins out from the wall, thereby creating dramatic shadows and contrasts.” [2]
“...it was facing south, which is perfect for the light describing the forms in the intaglio, which is the term to express form cut into a surface, as opposed to coming out from a surface. And then I was trying to figure out, well, I'll make the dorsal fins coming out in front of the wall. And I will attach them. And my friend Tony Sheets, who assisted me in carving these molds and so forth—he was the one that suggested, well, why not cut holes in the contractor's forms and attach in the sense of boxes to the outside and pour it all at the same time? Which, in fact, we did...
...And so here are these dorsal fins coming towards you, and as the sun moves across the sky each day, the fins cast their shadows off to the west in the morning and almost straight down at noon and then off to the east as the sun passes to the west.” [3]
“Tom no longer had a studio big enough to tackle this job. I had moved to Sebastopol, CA and had a studio there. He asked if I would be willing to have him come stay with us and work on this project together. He had not figured out how to create this design and it was fun to create side by side once again!” [4]
[1] Tom Van Sant, Annotated_Image_List.docx, October 4, 2012, TVS Digital Record.[2] Tom Van Sant, Tom Van Sant-Artist Statement.docx, June 19, 2013, TVS digital record.
[3] Jo Lauria, Oral history interview with Tom Van Sant, Smithsonian Archives of American Art, 2008.
[4] Tony Sheets. Email correspondence with the author, 2023.
