The Sculpture Project

It all started when…

Destination Rapid City, a private downtown community and economic development group, opened Main Street Square in October 2011. The public space replaced an aging parking lot and brought a vibrant, welcoming heart to downtown Rapid City. The project's landscape architect's design for the Square included 21 large pieces of granite along two sides of the Square, the Badlands Tapestry Garden and the Black Hills Tapestry Garden, with the intention that they be carved on site.

In January 2012, a community-based artist selection committee announced an international Call for Artists for The Sculpture Project. The call invited artists to create designs that reflected the natural and cultural history of the Black Hills and Badlands. Eighty-eight artists applied. Over the next twelve months, the committee, a partnership between Destination Rapid City and Rapid City Arts Council, with Wyss Associates, Inc. as project manager, narrowed the group to five finalists.

In December 2012, Destination Rapid City announced the selection of stone sculptor Masayuki (Yuki) Nagase as project artist. Nagase grew up in Japan and is based in Berkeley. Shortly afterward the selection, Yuki traveled to Rapid City for an exhibt of past works and his project plans for Passage of Wind and Water at the Dahl Arts Center. He also conducted Community Design Workshops throughout the Black Hills and Badlands, gathering input and inspiration from more than 600 residents.

The sculptor’s design for the project explores the region’s history of continuous and often rapid transformation by focusing on two major visual themes, wind for the Badlands Garden and water for the Black Hills Garden. Using traditional stone carving tools, Nagase began work at Main Street Square July 1, 2013 and returned over the course of the next four summers to complete the project.

About The Artist: Masayuki Nagase

“My overall goal as an artist is to express the essence and beauty of nature and to work with metaphors that inspire and connect people with nature in their region.” —Masayuki Nagase

Sculptor Masayuki Nagase views public art as an opportunity to develop long-term meaningful dialogue and connections among space, community and art. Nagase’s work is inspired by the essence of nature and natural forms. His preliminary design for The Sculpture Project: Passage of Wind and Water was based on his experience of the beauty and power of nature in the Black Hills and Badlands of western South Dakota. Nagase first visited the area 30 years ago and said the memory of its beauty drew him to apply to be The Sculpture Project artist.

“Nagase’s work possesses a kind of simplicity, refinement and uncommon purity which make the work timeless and at the same time, universal,” said RaVae Luckhart, an artist and member of the artist selection committee for The Sculpture Project.

Originally from Kyoto, Nagase attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo and completed a traditional stone-carving apprenticeship in the granite quarries there. He has worked as a sculptor internationally for over 30 years and as a public artist for more than 10 years. He lives in Berkeley, California with his family.

Nagase began his work in Rapid City on July 1, 2013. Using primarily traditional hand tools and carving onsite over the summer months, the artist projects completing Passage of Wind and Water in 2017.

Nagase's abstract design uses two major visual themes, wind for the Badlands Tapestry Garden along Main Street and water for the Black Hills Tapestry Garden along Sixth Street, and explores a vast expanse of the region's natural and cultural history.

"How much change all of the people have undergone here, both the Native people and the settlers," Nagase said. "That gave me the idea that I want to use change and transformation as the overall themes of my project."

The artist’s most recent public art installations are at San Francisco General Hospital; Venice Island in Manayunk, Pennsylvania; Portland State University in Oregon; Little Sugar Creek Greenway in Charlotte, North Carolina; and Centralia Community College in Washington. Nagase’s public art also appears in Colorado, Louisiana, Arizona, New Mexico, and California, as well as in Japan, Chile and Europe. The artist taught at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado and has been part of exhibitions and symposia in the U.S., Europe and South America. Visit his website here.

Artist’s Reflections on the Sculpture Project

In September 2017, Nagase completed the Rapid City sculpture project, The Passage of Wind and Water. “It almost seems like yesterday that I was working on the initial application, and it's hard to believe that was six years ago,” he said of the achievement. “I have always felt honored and grateful to have been selected as the artist and to have had the opportunity to work in this community.” Nagase added that he felt very satisfied to have completed the work on schedule and to have learned so much from the many people who shared their experiences and perspectives of this region.

The project was a true collaboration between many groups and a part of the vision of the original Main Street Square design. As part of his original vision for the project, Nagase wanted to support the local arts in the community. He found that some of the greatest potential of public art was the building of new channels of communication across diverse groups.

Nagase stated he was pleased with the following collaborative efforts by artists in Rapid City, most of which were supported in part through Destination Rapid City:

• Echoing Passages Collaborative: Sara Olivier, Randal Iverson, Ben Lemay and Christine Stewart Nunez

• Native POP People of the Plains, A Gathering of Art and Culture

• Creative documentation by photographer Steve Babbitt

• Wind and Water Art Exhibit at Prairie Edge Gallery

• Passage to Schools, K-12 Field Trip and School Curricula by Rapid City High School teacher Gabrielle Seeley

• Passage of Wind and Water - A Community's Journey at the Journey Museum

Nagase continued to show his gratefulness after successfully developing and launching the Teaching Artists Program, TAP, through the Rapid City Arts Council. A part of his original proposal was to offer arts education by local artists in the elementary schools. After five years, the program began to grow and spread in the schools. TAP also continued in the years following after receiving funding from the Rapid City Public School Foundation and the Black Hills Community Foundation.

Additionally, Nagase expressed his appreciation for all of the people of Rapid City and surrounding communities who offered their support, friendship and assistance — as well as his Lakota friends who shared their culture and deep understanding of nature with him.

The following are organizations and individuals who supported the Rapid City sculpture project:

• Destination Rapid City and Main Street Square staff and board; Dan Senftner and Megan Whitman

• The John T. Vucurevich Foundation (Hillenbrand Family)

• Patrick Wyss, Project Manager from Wyss Associates, Inc. and staff

• Anna Huntington, former Community Arts Coordinator for the Sculpture Project

• Rapid City Arts Council and Dahl Fine Arts Center: Pepper Massey and staff

• Alex Johnson Hotel

• Journey Museum

• First Peoples Fund

• Steve Babbitt, photographer for project documentation

• Sara Olivier, choreographer/dancer and her dance students who participated in Echoing Passages Collaborative

• Randal Iverson, cinematographer for Echoing Passages Collaborative

• Benjamin Lemay, composer for Echoing Passages Collaborative

• Christine Stewart Nunez and contributors to the choral poems that are part of the Echoing Passages Collaborative

• Gabrielle Seeley, Art and language teacher at Rapid City High School

• Jhon Goes in Center (Oglala Lakota), artist

• Deane Rundell, Landscape architect for Main Street Square

• Sculpture Project Advisory Committee

• Rapid City Sculpture Project Selection Committee

The following local companies also gave valuable support for the work on site:

• Rausch Granite and Life Song: Charles Rausch and his fabrication team Richard Niko Suchil, Josh Hansen and all other staff who helped with the sandblasting the spires and polishing on site

• SECO Construction, Inc.: Neal Schlottman, president and Dale Grim, supervisor and staff who helped with set up and create the safety barriers at the work site

• Red Letter Sign Company: Andrew Hade, owner who helped with the stencil work for the two spires

• Main Street Square maintenance crew for their ongoing support at the site