Installed 2024 – 7 of 100
175 Monmouth St
Independence, Oregon 97351
503-838-1811
Library Director: Patrick Bodily
Email: library@ci.independence.or.us
Notice how the time of day and seasons effect the rainbow beams as they glide thru the building, changing shape, color and position.
Ideal Viewing Times And Seasons
Times of Day:
Seasons:
Technical Details
Building Orientation:
(coming soon)
Solar Access:
(coming soon)
Some notes on how I made it
Two months after my Spirit Guides announced the 100 Libraries project, and a couple of weeks after my hospital release for a UTI and septic blood infection, I shakily drove to scout three nearby libraries. I was so eager to finally start finding 100 spaces architecturally adaptable to a site specific, solar art installation.
Driving from Corvallis, my first stop was Monmouth (a “no” because of trees shading the windows, and a too high skylight well,) next came Dallas, with huge storefront windows on the west, (a “yes”, with only small trees, and no buildings shading.) I finally arrived at the picturesque, river front town of Independence, around 5 PM.
From the parking lot, the back of the library doesn’t look like much, but when you step inside, you behold its glorious, 3 foot high, 360° clerestory roof monitor -floating above a 20 foot ceiling of open space.
As the Earth turns, gradually changing angles of sunlight flood the Independence Library from dawn till sunset, all year long.
A dream building for this solar spectrum artist.
Only one problem……This is a solar efficiency building built in 2004. The architects, Crow and Day, designed it to keep the heat and glare of direct sunlight from entering the building (thru my beautiful roof windows.) In front of my roof windows, they had placed rows of large aluminum tubes, blocking 70 % of direct sunlight from entering the building.
My designer’s mind immediately kicked in:
Are the tubes removable? Can I persuade the city to remove some – to make way for Healing Rainbow Light? I have to get on the roof to see.
Out of the 91 libraries I’ve visited and evaluated since August, 2023, so many, like Dallas with only west windows, or Garibaldi and Drain – only east windows – have very limited solar access, the fuel for my Solar Spectrum Art.
My design challenge with Independence was the opposite: What to do with this potential surfeit of riches? If I take out some of those sun blocking tubes, how much of this flood should I modulate into spectrum?
(18 months later, I’m not entirely sure that my design here is ideal. Maybe the spectrum is too bright, too intense? I could fix that with some baffles.) That’s the great thing about 100 Libraries, so many of the nearby sites have the potential to be a “work in progress” that I can refine in the future, till they are perfectly polished gems.
Library Director, Patrick Bodily wasn’t in, but I met the Children’s Librarian, Jolene Hall, of the fab pink hair, and took a lot of pictures.
After a two month delay, caused by another hospitalization – this time for the UTI bacteria that had now burrowed into my spinal bones – I finally felt well enough to pick up the phone and call Patrick. I told him about 100 Libraries, and returned to the problem of the shading tubes. He said he’d be happy to take me to the roof to investigate. So, on January 3, 2024, with my dear friend and library collaborator, Chet Johnson, at the wheel, we drove a beautiful country road to meet Patrick – the librarian who has been incredibly supportive throughout my six design and installation visits to Independence. (And, Chet has since become my super scouting buddy, helping me visit and evaluate over 40 more libraries.)
Patrick led us up a dark 20’ interior ladder and opened the roof hatch to blinding sunlight. On the roof, Chet and I took tube and window measurements. I was troubled to see the tubes looked like they could be hard to disassemble…. Back downstairs, Patrick found, and I photographed the 2003 construction blueprints for making my foam board design model.
Patrick kindly said he would look into the possibility of solar tube disassembly thru the city buildings people. Soon we had word from City Mechanic, John Steinberg that we could physically remove some tubes, paving the way for me to make my foam board model where I could physically explore – with spectrum light – which tubes to remove for the best installation. Moving ahead with my design, I took my first photographs of the Independence model in my living room on February 3. (my garage studio was too cold to work in.)
By the end of May, we again found ourselves climbing the ladder with John. With a wrench set borrowed from Patrick’s car, John disassembled two shade vane tubes, providing sunlight for a South West corner full scale prism mock up.
This project is such a collaboration!
With everyone enthralled with the spectrum’s magical glide through the interior, John took out three more sun blocking tubes. My studio assistant Andrew Rauch, and I returned on August 31, with a lift, donated by the Friends-of The Library and installed twelve laser-cut, flat prisms onto the inside of the clerestory window glass. It was a sunny day and the rainbows poured in.
Compared to solar artworks I’ve created in places like Berlin and Ireland, and only experienced for a day or two, the fact that this radiant jewel is only a forty minute drive on a beautiful country road, is my invitation to return again and again, to experience its seasonally changing colors, shapes and locations in the space. This is how I discover what I have created – set in motion, as the building circles the sun.
I especially like the video that pans away from Andrew installing, sweeping through the Upper Space of the library, searching for the stacks the spectrum is flooding. And the iconic vertical photo of spectrum in an aisle of stacks I took on the same day. (We used it in our booth at the Oregon library Association in April 2025.)
After grinding all day on the installation, Andrew Rauch and I had a blissful outdoor dinner at a restaurant on the bank of the Willamette right there in town. Thanks Andrew for all your brawn and muscle.
We opened on October 1, 2024 with Johanna again leading us in ”Somewhere over the Rainbow,” and my new studio assistant, Leigh Torrence on the roof pulling the strings to unveil the prisms. We all ate cake and were rainbow painted. And I just discovered a nine minute “Opening” video of me describing how the Independence spectrum works and showing the rainbow inside the quarter inch to a foot Independence model using my portable Xenon “Sun” light.
Compared to solar artworks I’ve created in places like Berlin and Ireland, and only experienced for a day or two after installation, the fact that this radiant jewel is only a forty minute drive on a beautiful country road, is my invitation to return and fully experience its seasonally changing colors, shapes and locations in the space. This is how I discover what I have created and set in motion, as the building circles the sun.
