I am not sure if I should go here or not. Quite a few people have asked me my option about the "Bowfort Towers." I would like to put a positive swing on it. The artist, Del Geist has been making public art art for 40 years and says public acceptance can take time. "If you walk into a museum and you don't know what it is about, maybe next time time you see it, you will get it and get the aspects of it. Often it takes a number of visits for it ti grow on you."
Geist travels to various places and tries to find a context of the earth which connects to the place specifically. His sculpture incorporates Rundle rock stones which are found only in Alberta. The stones were gathered from the personal collection of geologist Louis Kamenka at the the Kamenka Quarry near Canmore. There are imprints of fossils and even subtle ripples in the rock from the prehistoric river they once sat in. " The notion was to mark the entrance of the city using something that is specific to the region," Geist says.
My opinion? Go back and look at it with an open mind. Don't be so quick to judge. The Bowfort Towers may become loved with time. The whole purpose of public art is to surprise people, evoke a response, whether it be positive or negative and to break them out of their everyday slumber!
