Neighborhood Convergence, 2004 Powell Street Undercrossing, Emeryville, California

With sponsorship of the City of Emeryville and its Public Arts Committee, the artist team of M. Louise Stanley, Vickie Jo Sowell and Jeremy Hamm have transformed the city's Powell Street Undercrossing into a larger than life tableau featuring the residents of Emeryville.  

Eight larger than life and brightly painted steel figures are lit against a sky blue wall projecting dramatic silhouettes.  In the reversal of an arcade game, cars drive through the space while figures appear and re-appear behind columns along the pedestrian walk-way between the Marina and city of Emeryville. The eight figures consist of a boy and his dog, a bicycle policeman, a man in a wheelchair, a jogger, a painter, a tourist couple, a father and daughter, and two women holding an Emeryville sign. Each figure is welded to steel that is set in a sub-grade concrete foundation and braced in back. 

The back abutment walls of the underpass mimic the atmosphere of sky and water, and at night, when the figures are illuminated by fixed spotlights. their large silhouettes form dramatic shapes against the walls.