‘Vivid creatures’ will be taking over Morton Aboretum next year

First a family of trolls settled into the Morton Arboretum in Lisle.

Then more humanlike characters, Mother Earth types, began to populate areas of the grounds.

A new group of sculptural figures will be moving in, and these look like they’ve stepped out of a forest fairy-tale book or the arboretum’s own east woods — in giant form.

Artist couple Fez and Heather BeGaetz are creating a larger-than-life white-tailed deer, dragonfly, sandhill crane, fox squirrel and brittle button snail for their arboretum exhibition, “Vivid Creatures: An encounter with colorful forest friends,” opening in May.

“Their pieces are very bright, very whimsical,” said Amy Scott, the arboretum’s head of exhibitions. “What I love about the work and the design that they have shared with us so far is the detail that they’ve added into their pieces is so interesting. I feel like every time a visitor is going to take a look at each sculpture, they’re going to find something new.”

Renderings of the “Vivid Creatures” show the wings of the sandhill crane — that regal trumpeter of spring — outstretched with purple-tipped feathers. The deer has roots sprawling up its frame and a mass of branches and leaves for antlers.

“It will actually be a sculpture that you can walk under,” Scott said.

Construction already is in progress at the BeGaetz workshop and studio in Portland, Oregon. The pieces — the tallest is 24 feet high — will be made from recycled steel and fiber-reinforced cement and painted with acrylic so the five “Vivid Creatures” can withstand Midwestern weather.

“Eighty percent of the steel that they use has been recycled at least once, and steel actually has a lower carbon footprint than most other materials that are used in large-scale sculptures,” Scott said.

That’s in keeping with other environmentally-conscious outdoor exhibitions at the arboretum. Danish artist Thomas Dambo, for instance, used reclaimed wood to build his troll brethren. What’s new and different with “Vivid Creatures”: the focus on wildlife that either migrate or live in the region and most of their locations.

Four of the five pieces will be placed along a paved, ADA-compliant path near the visitor center. The snail, though, will sit atop a hill overlooking Interstate 88, where “Joe the Guardian” — the troll with the spear and the rock-star hair — once reigned as a roadside landmark.

“The last few exhibitions we’ve had in different parts of the arboretum to really help people explore and find new areas of the arboretum,” Scott said. “For this one, we wanted to make sure that accessibility was our No. 1 goal.”

She discovered Fez and Heather BeGaetz through a newsletter. Their art has been featured at the Electric Forest in Michigan and other music festivals.

“Our works are invitations to take sanctuary in wonder, and to be gathering places for people to enter worlds of imagination,” Heather BeGaetz said in a statement. “This series is about relationships. The pieces help people arrive in place and alter people’s way of interacting with that place, and then hopefully also with each other.”

The exhibition will be included free with general admission to the arboretum. The opening date is set for May 17.

https://www.dailyherald.com/20241030/visual-arts/vivid-creatures-will-be-taking-over-morton-aboretum-next-year/