Short Summary: My new installation Floral Canopy transforms native New York plants into hundreds of suspended wire sculptures that create a floating wildflower meadow.
In August 2023, just as students and staff prepared to enter their new building for the first time, Floral Canopy was installed in the lobby ceiling of the Albee Square Campus in Brooklyn. This site-specific public artwork represents the culmination of a four-year journey that began in 2019—a project that deepened my understanding of how art can honor place, celebrate local ecology, and create a sense of belonging for the communities that encounter it daily.
Floral Canopy is composed of hundreds of hand-shaped, powder-coated steel sculptures painted in vibrant greens, yellows, and oranges that form a floating field of native plants above viewers’ heads. Like three-dimensional drawings, these intricately crafted and gestural wire forms accumulate into a suspended wildflower meadow—shifting perspective and inviting students, teachers, and visitors to look up and discover a garden where they might least expect it.
The foundation of this work lies in botanical research and careful observation. I spent considerable time at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Native Flora Garden and the New York Botanical Garden’s Steere Herbarium, examining plant specimens that call New York home. I made dozens of drawing studies of local species including May Apple, Button Bush, Milkweed, and many others—plants that have adapted to this specific climate and soil, plants that have their own stories within this ecosystem.
This process of documentation became integral to the artwork itself. By translating scientific observation into artistic interpretation, Floral Canopy demonstrates how different ways of knowing—the scientist’s careful cataloging and the artist’s imaginative rendering—can work in harmony. Each wire plant form began as a herbarium specimen, became a drawing study, and finally transformed into a suspended sculpture that captures both botanical accuracy and artistic expression.
Native plants function as markers of memory and place. They tell us where we are. They connect us to the land beneath our feet and the history of that land before buildings rose and streets were paved. For students entering this new school building, Floral Canopy offers a connection to the natural world that persists even within an urban environment. It reminds them that this place—Brooklyn, New York—has its own flora, its own ecological identity.
I’m particularly drawn to the gestural, playful quality of working with wire. There’s an immediacy to it, a sense of drawing in space. The vibrant colors—greens that echo new growth, yellows that suggest sunlight, oranges that hint at autumn—create an optimistic, energetic atmosphere in the school’s entrance. The work moves subtly with air currents, creating an ever-changing interplay of line and shadow that keeps the installation feeling alive.
This project would not have been possible without exceptional collaborators. My deepest thanks to Versteeg Art Fabricators for creating the structural grid system and expertly installing the artwork. They are not only skilled professionals but genuinely amazing humans who brought care, precision, and problem-solving creativity to every aspect of the fabrication and installation process.
I’m also incredibly grateful to Molly Dillworth, whose guidance and support throughout the making of this work was invaluable. Her insights helped shape the project at crucial moments.
And of course, this commission was made possible through Public Art for Public Schools and the NYC School Construction Authority—programs that recognize the vital importance of bringing high-quality art into educational environments.
As students walk through the doors of Albee Square Campus each day, they pass beneath a floating garden of their own place. My hope is that Floral Canopy offers them a moment of wonder, a connection to the natural systems that surround them, and a reminder to look up—to notice the beauty and complexity that exists even in unexpected spaces.
Public art in schools carries particular significance. These works become part of students’ daily experience, part of their memory of this time in their lives. Four years of research, drawing, wire-shaping, and collaboration resulted in this permanent installation—a native garden suspended in steel, welcoming a community into their new home.
Find out more information about the project here.
Floral Canopy, 2023
Powder-coated steel wire
Albee Square Campus, Brooklyn, New York
Commissioned by Public Art for Public Schools and NYC School Construction Authority
Fabrication and Installation: Versteeg Art Fabricators
