Making of Ventifacts | Hanging Installation Art in Indian Wells

Ventifacts, a site-specific installation art piece suspended from the ceiling above the registration desk at Renaissance Esmeralda Resort. Created by Ashley Nardone of Duofab.

ARRID WIND-WORN
DESERT ROCK FORMS

BEHIND THE SCENES

ARTWORK CONCEPT

At the center of Ventifacts there is a simple obsession: ROCKS. These particular rocks tell a story of how centuries of desert wind have shaped them, and how centuries of sunsets cast color on them.

bEHIND THE SCENES

Building rock forms for the site-specific installation art piece Ventifacts.

Ventifacts was fabricated from hand-shaped aluminum and threaded wire mesh. The shapes were designed for The Renaissance Esmeralda Resort in California to hang from the ceiling at reception. Each boulder is formed with faceted planes that mimic the sharp angles wind carves into the desert stones. The artwork’s palette is based on the tones that move across the surrounding mountains at sunrise and sunset, echoing the landscape of Indian Wells.

As the rocks are arranged into a field of airy boulders overhead, the mesh surfaces shift between mostly transparent and nearly opaque as the viewer moves below. Because of the way the shapes overlap, a parallax effect makes the piece feel responsive in another way, the boulders appear to shift position as the viewer moves beneath them.

Painting rock forms for the site-specific installation art piece Ventifacts.

Preparing rock forms used in the site-specific installation art piece Ventifacts.

Plans and drawings for building rock forms for the site-specific installation art piece Ventifacts.

I first designed the forms digitally in 3D to create the rock shapes and arrange them. The next step was to create small-scale maquettes using a 3D printer so I could study the exact shapes, proportions, and overall arrangement of the design before building the final work to scale.

Behind the scenes look at Ashley Nardone installing Ventifacts, a site-specific installation artwork at Renaissance Esmeralda in Indian Wells, CA.

Those maquettes became an important part of the fabrication process. In the beginning, I used them for estimating materials and planning out my fabrication method. As I formed the aluminum frame of each boulder, the 3D prints were used as references for scaling up each unique shape. Finally, I printed a version of the entire installation that I used as a dimensional blueprint for hanging theindividual pieces of the composition on site.

It was the first time I utilized 3D printed models in my workflow and I can’t believe how much impact it had on the success of making Ventifacts.