Palm Springs Life 3: Whirlwind Unveiled

On Thursday morning the 21st, a small collection of notable Palm Springs citizens...



...gathered for the unveililng of a new public sculpture in the rose garden of lovely Ruth Hardy Park.



The emcee was Mike Stern who introduced the political celebrities and proclaimed how Art helped Tourism which was The Business of Palm Springs.



Ron Oden, the charming, openly gay mayor of the city was the next speaker. He's a controversial character lately, neither for his race nor his sexual preferences, but because he's been the front man for a couple of dreadful real estate development schemes that are going to obscure everyone's views of the beloved San Jacinto Mountains.



The four-foot high "Whirlwind VI" turned out to be a quite beautiful mirrored steel sculpture by Gary Slater from Tempe, Arizona.



Slater was genuinely pleasant when I spoke to him before the unveiling, but he looked shy and uneasy at the podium so he didn't stay up there long.



In his published Artist's Statement, Slater writes: "Whirlwind" is a series I started several years ago and the form of the spiraling steel reminded me of the whirlwinds that spring up in the desert in the summer."



"Whirlwind VI is so far the most dramatic of the series, with more blades than the previous "Whirlwinds."



My favorite feature of the sculpture is that it looks completely different from every angle, gracefully reflecting the world around it.