COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – For years Jonathan Brilliant has been collecting fortunes, the slivers of paper bearing wisdom that are wrapped into crisp cookies served at Chinese restaurants. Brilliant, a visual artist, began making scale models of outdoor art pieces using the fortunes.
He said the models looked like the work of Richard Serra, a sculptor known for working with sheet metal.
“I was just using the papers as a funny modeling thing,” Brilliant said. “And it took on a life of its own.”
He didn’t know whether he would get the opportunity to make the models come to life, but when the Columbia Design League held an open competition for its Play With Your City public art initiative, Brilliant thought he had the perfect idea.
Brilliant’s “Field of Good Fortune,” a site-specific installation featuring 12-foot-long fortunes made of mounted sign material, will open Friday in the green area at Main and Lady streets.
After three finalists were selected by the CDL, an affiliate group of the Columbia Museum of Art, Teri Tynes, a New York-based arts writer and blogger who has lived in Columbia, served as the deciding juror.
The CDL provided $3,000 for the project.
“It was a really great opportunity for me because this was a project I wanted to make,” Brilliant said. “This would not have happened if the Columbia Design League was not excited about it. It’s easy to make work, but it’s difficult to get it out to the public.”
Brilliant, a Charleston native who now lives in Columbia, is known for his site-responsive art. His recent work includes “Have Sticks Will Travel,” an exhibition that was installed, in varying forms, in 13 galleries in 18 months. “Sticks, Straws, Sleeves and Leaves,” an installation built with coffee stirrer sticks, opened at McMaster Gallery in January 2010.
As he presented his proposal to the Design League and Tynes, Brilliant was adamant that “Field of Good Fortune” would be temporary. He repeated the notion several times during his presentation in September.
‘With ideas like this, I think it’s easier to execute when it’s not permanent,” he said earlier this week. ‘I think people are more willing to accept something when they don’t have to live with it. When something is temporary, it enhances the experience.”
The fortunes that will be displayed are scanned images from actual fortunes Brilliant collected. He used a flatbed scanner, an optical device he referred to as the perfect camera because it reads texture.
“They look like paper, like stained fortune paper,” Brilliant said of the blown-up images, printed by Signs Now, that will be affixed to aluminum backs. “They look like giant pieces of paper. We made them like you’d make a giant sign.”
But how will it look in the grassy area owned by First Citizens Bank?
“I’m just augmenting the landscaping design that’s already there,” said Brilliant, who will have the fortunes mirroring the flow and curves of the space. “How they’re going to be arranged will mimic the pathway.”
Brilliant started with a list of 20 fortunes from his collection that were approved for the project. He narrowed the number to six that had content related to art or the artistic impression.
Here’s what one fortune reads: “You are original and creative.” There are smiley faces on both sides of the phrase.
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