“My mission is to bring magic and enchantment to people’s everyday lives. I use color, light and shadow, transparency, and movement to communicate values such as play, lightness, and transformation.”
Danielle Foushée is a recipient of a 2017 Artist Research & Development Grant.
Artist Research and Development Grants are designed to support the advancement of artistic research, aid in the development of artistic work and recognize the contributions individual artists make to Arizona’s communities. For more information about the Artist Research & Development Grant, click here.
Foushée’s will create a half-size model for a modular community shade shelter – perhaps a bus or picnic shelter. She will use this maquette to experiment with materials and develop strategies for making this dream a reality. The final product will be used as a maquette that she can use when making public art proposals and for communicating visually with community members and commissioning agencies. In the process of creating the maquette, Foushée intends to develop new knowledge for her sculpture practice that incorporates translucent, weatherproof, resin paintings that are embedded into large-scale, three-dimensional, geometric forms at human scale. On sunny days, imagery inside cast translucent resins will generate colorful shadows on the visitors below, and will be structurally engineered using a metal framework. The design of the metal framework will include housing for small solar panels that will allow the shelter to self-illuminate at night with embedded optical fibers.
From left to right: Delight in Green. Steel and Acrylic 13′ x 13′ x 20′ 2016. Downtown Bellevue, Washington; Wind Paddles (aka: The Lollipop). Steel, Acrylic 3′ x 3′ x 6′ 2016; The Wave. 9′ x 8′ x 2.5′ 2015. Carkeek Park, City of Seattle, Washington.
Danielle Foushée is an artist/designer living in Phoenix, Arizona. She is Assistant Professor of Design at Arizona State University where she teaches graduate students and conducts her own creative practice. She received her first Master of Fine Art in Design at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and recently completed another MFA in Visual Studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art.
Foushée’s research & creative projects involve public art, place-making, strategic city-branding, and biophilia. Public projects include commissions from Storefronts Seattle at Amazon Headquarters, Seattle City Parks, and the City of Bellevue, Washington. Before moving to Phoenix, she served nearly a million citizens as an appointed member of the Snohomish County Arts Commission in Washington, advising the county on public projects, developing programming, building partnerships, and advocating for community participation in the arts. In 2015, Foushée undertook a yearlong, almost 12,000-mile road trip — to research & experience first-hand — public and outdoor art throughout the western U.S. Field notes are at mowart.tumblr.com.
Her design clients have included The Museum of Contemporary Art, L.A., The Boston Conservatory, Chronicle Books, The U.S. Forest Service, University of Colorado Extension, GameWorks, & Myriad Pictures. Her work as Brand Manager for the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising resulted in a 300% increase in student enrollment. Her work has been recognized by How magazine, Communication Arts, American Center for Design, University & College Designers Association, Graphic Design USA, and Graphis.
She also taught college-level art/design courses at Art Center, Otis, UCLA, USC, Utah State, and Seattle Central Creative Academy. Her students’ work has been honored by prestigious organizations like Graphis and Type Directors’ Club.
Perspectives: Danielle Foushée
Perspectives is an on ongoing series of interviews and check-ins with recipients of our Artist Research and Development Grant (ARDG). Recently, we spoke with Phoenix-based public artist Danielle Foushée about "Invitation," a piece installed at the entrance to Tempe Beach Park in October 2017.
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