Just installed Nicole Beck’s “Embrace” 2026, at the Philip J Rock Center & School for the DeafBlind, Glen Ellyn, IL. Commissioned by the Illinois Capital Development Board AIA Program
11’x 9’x 3’, Stainless Steel, Gabion Bench with Midwestern glacial field stones & Ipe Wood, Mosaic, LEDs, Braille Plate.
The artwork signifies the education, therapy, and support services that empower students to achieve their personal highest level of independence at the only publicly funded residential school in the country serving students aged 3-22, thus creating a home for the DeafBlind and those children with multiple special needs.
The large mosaic heart that will be suspended above the bench provides a pleasant and touchable surface for the DeafBlind residents. A braille plate quoting Mark Twain also reassures them “Kindness is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” The curved new moon sculpture shape echoes the arc of love and the warm Embrace of a loving staff and their care. Soft LEDs will cast gentle and dynamic swirls of light & shadow.
The work features a gabion bench covered in Ipe wood and filled with erratic rocks collected from the property. The long time (now retired) Director, Bonnie Jordan collected them herself as a ritual devotion to namesake Founder, Phillip J Rock, former Speaker of the House of Illinois. These stones were left in Midwestern fields following the retreat of the glaciers that created the Great Lakes, and thus using local histories and their artifacts to create a site-specific sculpture. I am so grateful to be able to do public sculpture that truly matters and speaks to its mission.
BIG thanks to fabrication partners Vector Custom Fabrication -Chicago; Alex at RGB Lights, Chicago; Christopher Tedin -CGI design workup; Zach Lindsey, Installation & Rigging, Bonnie Jordan, former Director of the Rock Center.