Vail – When landscape artist Patrick Marold says that his latest display has taken a lot of energy, he makes an unwitting double-entendre.
Marold and a small crew of assistants have spent the past week tirelessly planting 2,700 miniature windmills into the snow along the Vail golf course, where the 8-foot translucent poles crowned with spinning tops glow as the breezes blow.
The sheer number of poles, the demands of physical labor at 8,000 feet, the constantly melting snow and hidden rocks – lots and lots of rocks – have compounded the difficulties of what is the most ambitious project yet for both Marold and for the town of Vail as it establishes itself as an art destination.
But the result of his labor is a mesmerizing after-hours show of light and darkness that ebbs depending on the speed and consistency of the wind.
“I’m using light as a way of illustrating what’s going on with the wind. So you see all the changes, all the swells,” he said. “You can kind of anticipate the motion of (ocean) waves. But wind moves differently, in unpredictable patterns. It almost travels and lives in certain spots.”
The concept for wind-powered lights struck Marold when he was in Iceland on a Fulbright scholarship, where he found that the combination of long hours of darkness and wind created a unique canvas.
In Iceland, the smaller-scale project used windmills with fanlike blades; the Vail windmills catch the breeze in stainless steel wind cups that resemble weather anemometers.
The windmill project, lighted at least through Earth Day, April 22, is the boldest effort to date of the resort town’s Art in Public Places program, blending environmental awareness, tourism and high-profile, freely displayed art.
The program directors persuaded town officials to spend $94,500 from its pool of real-estate transfer taxes to fund the display, betting that the light show will attract overnight visitors, draw people to nearby restaurants and entice art aficionados to consider trips to Vail.
“It’s a phenomenon, a happening, a reason to come out of the house,” said Leslie Fordham, coordinator for the public-arts program perhaps best known for marketing replicas of Vail’s manhole covers. “We’ve got art right here in the Vail Valley. You don’t have to travel to New York or Aspen for art.”
Although the windmill is visible as “drive-by art” from Interstate 70 and the frontage road, officials anticipate that many visitors will make the 5-minute snowy trek to the windmill field on snowshoes or cross-country skis, or ride past in a horse-drawn sleigh.
“We envision kids running through the windmill fields, enjoying themselves,” Fordham said.
In winds of just 5 mph or more, the lights flicker and swirl in eddys, like wheat fields before a thunderstorm. The stronger gusts will draw bright glows from windmills, which are scattered over an area the size of half a football field and marching up into the aspens flanking an avalanche run-out zone.
“You have to rely on the wind to let the art happen,” Marold said.
Mountain wind is capricious enough, though, that he agreed to a clause in his contract with the town that guarantees the devices will glow at least half of the evenings.
“If we don’t have wind, I’ll work with the town to bring them back or leave them up longer,” Marold said.
Those are the kinds of allowances artists have to make when dealing with nature, such as the sometimes- frustrating process of determining where to plant the poles in the first place.
“I had an idea of where I wanted them,” Marold said, noting the difficulty of driving the poles deep enough without hitting rocks, “but Mother Nature had different plans.”
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IF YOU GO
The Windmill Project is located just south of the Vail golf course in East Vail. It is visible from Interstate 70 and the frontage road and is best viewed after 8 p.m., when the lights really get glowing.
Walkers and snowshoers are encouraged to park at the Vail Golf Club restaurant, located off the frontage road on Vail Valley Drive, for the short hike on the snowshoe track over gentle terrain.
The Clubhouse restaurant also offers evening dinner sleigh rides that will pass by the display. Call 970-476-8057 for information.
A family night, including a visit with the artist, is scheduled for April 13. Details have not been finalized but will be available at artinvail.com.
