EARTH, FIRE, WATER - 1957
Influenced by his mentor Millard Sheets, Van Sant’s Master of Fine Art thesis project was an Italian glass mosaic, which he created for the newly built ceramics block at the LA County Art Institute (now called the Otis College of Art and Design).
Personifying the elements used to craft ceramics, Earth, Fire, Water drew upon indigenous imagery from northeastern America and the U.S. Midwest to represent fire in the form of a Thunderbird positioned at the top of the mosaic.
“Water” is represented by an androgynous full-length naked figure with webbed feet that is depicted in cool colors. The warmer-toned “Earth” reclines at the bottom of the mosaic. With its head closer to the viewer than its feet, the naked androgynous figure is encased within a black shape. Its outstretched hands and open eye suggest it has been surprised or awakened. Perhaps by the stream that flows from the hands of “Water.”
EARTH, FIRE, WATER, IN SITU, C. 1957
EARTH, FIRE, WATER, DETAIL, C. 1957
OTIS MURAL DESTROYED, C. 1957
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Retail Clerks International Union (REIU)
Local 707 5955 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, California
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1957
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N/A
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Oil paint on canvas
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Unknown
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Unknown
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Retail Clerks International Union, Local 707
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Unknown. (The building still stands, but no longer houses REIU, Local 770. )
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TVS digital records.
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Van Sant received this commission while studying for his MFA at the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now Otis Art Institute), when he won a competition held among graduate art students in Los Angeles and vicinity. It was made for the REIU’s new building in Hollywood. The raw canvas visible in the photograph’s upper right edge and the unfinished appearance of some of the figures suggest that it may record a sketch or a grisaille stage in the work. Alternatively, unresolved aspects of the work may result from student inexperience.
