Artwork copyright Lanny Bergner. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Artwork copyright Lanny Bergner. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Constellation Maker, 2012

Lanny Bergner
(American, born 1952)

Location: Northwest Career and Technical Academy, Mount Vernon

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Artist Lanny Bergner's ‘Constellation Maker’ is comprised of 167 half-spheres in a variety of sizes, that are coated with colored, crushed glass "frit" and connected by woolly thread. The artwork suggests an imaginary stellar nebula tethered to the wall.

This is one of five artworks by Lanny Bergner at the Northwest Career and Technical Academy in Mount Vernon, Northwest Washington. The artworks reference plant biology, micro-organisms, cosmology (the science of the origin and development of the universe), undersea life forms, and the human body. They examine where nature and industry merge, and celebrate “the mystery and wonder of it all.”

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Northwest Career and Technical Academy.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Anacortes-based artist Lanny Bergner creates mixed-media sculptures and site-specific installations for public spaces. He has been creating hand-worked organic and geometric artworks out of industrial metal mesh since 1983. The otherworldly quality of Bergner’s artworks often contrasts to the everyday materials he uses to construct them.

Born in Anacortes, Bergner was an apprentice to Skagit County-based sculptor Philip McCracken in 1976. He went on to receive a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, and a Master in Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia.