Denton Women’s Interracial Fellowship Monument

Public Art for the City of Denton Texas

The installation honors the Denton Women's Interracial Fellowhip, a group of maverick 1960s civil rights activists. Forging bonds of friendship across racial barriers, they eased public school desegregation and won major improvements in living conditions for Denton's African American community.

This complex art installation is a contemporary take on yesteryear’s sculpture gardens. Artworks dispersed throughout a public park convey a powerful legacy of courage, love and determination. With stunning color and motion, monument-size lenticular discs interactively morph and change as people enter the park. Achieved through op art, the motion and color morphs require no technology or electricity.

At the opposite end of the park, colorful images fused into aluminum are suspended from a 24-foot stainless-steel arc. Carefully curated and intensely researched black and white archival photos were colorized and reformed into contemporary art. Together, they tell the Fellowship's story while providing historic social context. Celebrating the Fellowship's accomplishments, demographically-diverse faces of Dentons' current school children appear on park pathway lights.

The circle, one of humanity's oldest symbols for untiy, forms the base structural shape for each component of the installation, from round bollard lights to the stainless-steel arc. Commissioned during intense public debate regarding confederate statues, this art installation strategically reimages what art monuments can be.

Commissioned by: City of Denton Texas - Public Art Program

Installed: December 2021

Materials: Lenticular print, stainless steel, dye-sublimation powder coating, aluminum