BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Over a decade ago, in 1998, the Illinois Wesleyan School of Art was given an endowment gift of $2 million by B. Charles Ames ’50 to name the art building after his wife, Joyce Eichhorn Ames. Over the years, Mrs. Ames, class of 1949 and a former art student, wondered if anything could be done to distinguish the building, utilitarian in nature, as a recognizable school of art. The plans that followed can now be seen from the Robert S. Eckley Quadrangle – a glass rotunda entrance that houses a unique sculpture by artist Lyle London of Tempe, Ariz.
The more than 2,400-square-foot glass rotunda will serve as the new entryway to the school of art building. With a substantial amount of work finished on the outside of the rotunda itself, the sculpture can now be placed within, as art students and faculty, as well as London, began working together this week to suspend it from the center of the glass tower.
Funded by trustee emeritus Flora Harris Armstrong, class of 1943, as a gift to the University, the work is an abstraction, taking the form of three interwoven, tapering helices. It is constructed from stainless steel and dichroic glass.