‘Entwined’ public art lights up lawn at Laguna Beach City Hall

The time of year has come when those out and about begin looking hopefully for holiday decorations.

Downtown Laguna Beach is dressed for the part, shimmering representations of snowflakes now hanging from tree branches along city streets that lead to the coastline.

Adding to the illuminating effects in the area is the most recent public art installation at City Hall, which has brought a glowing garden of plant-like metal sculptures to its front lawn.

Children have been spotted dancing among the makeshift flower field produced by artist Charles Gadeken. “Entwined,” as this piece is called, consists of several shrubs of varying sizes with LED lighting at their tips. It changes color patterns and contains interactive components.

“When you’re dealing with the larger shrubs, it’s going to give you a variety of activities,” Gadeken said of the installation, which will remain on view until Jan. 31. “You can change the hue. There are these complex patterns that run over the entire piece. … It allows you to manipulate those patterns and to change the hue, with the color and the saturation on that.”

The interactivity of the piece can be accessed through a QR code on the structures. One of the prompts asks the inquiring person to activate their microphone, said Gadeken, who added the lights will then react to the sound.

A close-up look at one of the shrubs in artist Charles Gadeken’s “Entwined” public art installation in Laguna Beach.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Gadeken, 60, who was raised in Colorado and moved to San Francisco at the age of 20, has been working as an artist since. While he did attend some college classes, he said he dropped out of high school at 16. A battle with dyslexia made writing a challenge for Gadeken, who is proud to say he is self-taught.

In an interesting twist, Gadeken has now found himself in the classroom as an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University, where he said he is working with students to build an installation for the 125th anniversary of its electrical engineering department. The project, called “Flight,” will feature 76 robotic birds hanging in the foyer of the Packard building.

The origins of “Entwined” were much closer to home for Gadeken, who had long hoped to have an exhibit in Golden Gate Park. As it turned out, the installation was one of the few things the public could take in with coronavirus pandemic restrictions in place.

“I was given this amazing opportunity to create a very site-specific installation that allowed a lot of people to be able to come out in public and to experience a work of art — at a pretty heavy set of social distancing,” Gadeken said. “I had the three taller trees, and then I made 20 of these smaller shrubs, and we put them into a field called ‘Peacock Meadow.’

“It was a pretty heavy experience. You couldn’t go to a restaurant in San Francisco, but you were able to come out to Golden Gate Park and interact with these works of art in a place where there were other people.”

Gadeken entertained the question of what might happen when the public interfaces with his work. He looked back on a rather direct approach taken by a teacher to send a message about being prepared for the worst.

Charles Gadeken’s “Entwined” public art installation sets the lawn aglow at Laguna Beach City Hall on Tuesday evening.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

“It was a metal-working class called public art,” Gadeken recalled. “I remember on the last day of the class, we went to the classroom, we were all going to get our sculptures graded. … The classroom was empty, and all of our sculptures were gone. There was a sign that said, ‘Meet me at the top of the quad.’

“We all went up to the top of the quad, and all of our sculptures were lined up at the top of this 100-foot staircase. Then the teacher kicked our sculptures down the staircase, and he said, ‘It has to stay together to make it to the bottom because that’s what’s required to make public art.’”