Eau Yeah! Water sculpture moves inside the home

by Chris Halliday

Combining the soothing sound and flow of running water with the visual appeal of sculpture can be a difficult task. A new breed of sculptors is changing the face of fountain design and bringing it literally inside the home. Small, flowing fountains are sitting on tables as centerpieces, larger fountains are replacing free-standing sculptures in the homes and cascading waterfalls of all shapes and sizes are being mounted onto walls instead of paintings. “It is actually living, moving, three-dimensional art, all fused with a certain artistic sense,” says New York tabletop fountain artist Gavin Hamnett. “People are looking for a miniature version of nature that they can put in their home.”

It’s not hard to catch a glimpse of a cheap fountain on the Internet, but finding a quality piece of water sculpture inside an art gallery can be a tedious task. Brigitte Micmacker is the owner of two art galleries in California. Both the SculptureSite Art Gallery and the New Leaf Art Gallery show fountains as part of their exhibits year round.

“Galleries that consider themselves very “serious” shy away from showing water sculpture,” says Micmacker. “They feel like it’s just something that belongs in a garden. I think that’s because they aren’t being exposed to pieces that are truly artistic.”

Fountain artist Doug Heine says a group of reformed sculptors like himself have “backed into using water as an element in sculpture.” With them they have brought the aesthetic balance, skill and expertise of sculpting to fountain design.

“We look at it as sculpture. The piece has to satisfy the design elements like that of any good piece of sculpture,” says Heine. “Then you add the elements of water and sound, which creates a greater challenge. It’s truly just adding extra dimensions to sculpture.”

Water sculpture artist Alan Hochman creates medium to large-sized fountains at his studio in Arizona. He says people are “only beginning to appreciate and understand fountain design as a form of art, as opposed to decoration or background.”

Hochman’s Spiral Unfolding is a perfect example of the impact of these skills. In a curved water
sculpture cut from a block of cream spanish marble, Hochman carved vertical grooves along two-thirds of the piece to add texture not only to the sculpture itself, but to the way water hugs and flows on its surface.

“It’s curved, it has texture and water flow covers every inch of the stone,” he says. “The back is also curved and water draws down both its smooth and rough surfaces.”

The often unpredictable flow of a stream of water makes controlling it an artistic skill important in water sculpting, often distinguishing the best artists from the rest.

Barton Rubenstein is an artist from Maryland who says the water patterns in his sculptures have given him more headaches than he can remember. “It’s a tremendous challenge to control this chaotic medium. We can’t control it, but we can constrain it,” says Rubenstein. “Water doesn’t scale to different dimensions. You don’t save time making small models to see if the water will flow where you want.”

Rubenstein says that although controlling water is difficult, there are ways to move it along a surface. “Water tends to grab hold of surfaces and not want to let go.”

He says his indoor piece Reach for the Stars is an excellent example of how water can coat a surface and momentarily disobey gravity. The piece has three curved-ribbon shapes standing in a basin. There is a curved sheet of water shaped to the surface of each piece flowing from top to bottom.

“You can push the limit, so that water will pass under a surface without letting go,” says Rubenstein. “Reach for the Stars has a lot of undersurfaces where water won’t let go. It will hold underneath a surface and continue moving down.” Rubenstein says he carves microgrooves in some sculptures, enticing water to flow in an unusual way, forcing it to areas of his piece where “it wouldn’t normally want to go.”

While some artists use sheets of water to grab hold of surfaces, others use waterfalls to pour it from one level of the sculpture to another. Hamnett likes to incorporate waterfalls into his tabletop fountains, but, as he explains, a calculated pattern must be designed to limit the splashing of falling water.

“When you have water falling side to side in a waterfall, you can protect, even stop splashing as the water hugs the rock and falls down,” says Hamnett. “With indoor fountains you don’t want splashing; the water must drop quietly so you get a nice sound.”

Not only does running water add a visual experience to sculpture, it also sends a melody of trickling water to anybody standing nearby. Hochman spends a lot of time on the music his fountains make, tinkering with variables like the speed of the water, the angle it hits, the distance it drops and whether it is dropping onto water or stone.

Ideally, artists want to have water sliding down surfaces in an interior space because it will limit the pitch and sound of the fountain. Pennsylvania tabletop fountain artist Charles Kern says it should “blend into the background, so you don’t really hear it, but you do.” According to Kern, water sculptors can use a lot of different techniques to make their fountains “more soothing or more explosive.”

“A perfectly sheeted waterfall hugs the side and looks like a sheeted piece of glass on the surface... It’s totally quiet. You can’t hear it whatsoever.”

As for creating a louder sounding fountain, Kern recommends cascading waterfalls. “That’s where you get your most sound,” he says. “Cascades actually hug the rock, but you have to release them from the rock so they hit or slap the water to create a sound.” 

Water sculpture has moved inside the home because artists are fusing the soothing sound and elegant sight of water with the artistic elements of sculpture. It is an art of both sight and sound. By adding running water to the visual shapes and texture of their pieces, these artists are fashioning the look of indoor fountain design for the future.

A River Runs Through it

One of Jennifer Madden and Jeff Reed’s unique tables will bring a river right into your dining room.

“People that dine around water and the sound of water say it’s an experience,” says Madden. “It makes a wonderful gathering place for conversation and food.”

The couple’s California Water Table looks like an earthquake has cracked open its concrete
top, while a running, re-circulating stream of water fills the gap between the table’s two halves. The water can be replaced with ice, so your champagne, shrimp or grapes will remain chilled while you dine and/or entertain.

Another of their pieces, The Fount, has a much lighter design. The countertop is made of glass and the square in the middle is home to a pool of flowing water. “If you need extra serving space you can put the (glass) platter on, and then serve your sushi,” says Madden. The light beneath the table’s square can help brighten an unlit room while reflecting a watery shadow onto the ceiling.
“It’s wonderful inside the house at night,” says Madden. “You feel like you’re underwater when you look up to the ceiling.”

The tables can make any room in the home an interior oasis for thought and reflection. “We don’t spend enough time just being and listening. The table is successful because it makes you sit, listen and think,” Madden says. “I hope our tables have created more (contemporary) environments for people.”