This globe sculpture by Jonathan Franklin is titled "Garden Variety." It is located in front of the Exelon (formerly Commonwealth Edison) Chicago North Regional Headquarters on N. California Ave. at Addison St. and is one of very few remnants of the "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet" project in 2007. The original series of fiberglass globes were decorated by various artists and displayed for much of 2007 in the area between the Field Museum and Balbo Drive along the lakefront, with another group installed on the lawn west of Navy Pier. Several "teasers" like this one, were installed around the city, though not with the same city-wide pervasiveness of the "Cows on Parade" of 1999, which reportedly inspired this project. This globe depicts a lush urban garden on the slick surface of the 5-foot diameter orb, and is mounted on a concrete platform next to the main company sign in front of the building, serving in a way as a dimensional corporate logo. It should be noted that Exelon, based in Chicago, is a company that heavily markets itself as providing a "greener" or more sustainable future in energy, as the presence of this globe and the accompanying plaque, lauding the city of Chicago's "Green Leadership" suggest. However, even a cursory look at Exelon's practices reveals fundamental contradictions. For example, their television, print and web campaign to promote the diversity of sources of energy generation they promote, including renewables (The Exelon website front page is filled with windmills) is betrayed by their own pie chart showing the distribution of their sources as being 92% Nuclear, and only 2% renewable sources. Not much diversity, let alone sustainability there...The public debate on the "cleanliness" of nuclear energy rages on, but among real environmental activists (not energy providers) it is widely believed that nuclear energy is extremely harmful to the environment despite its lower carbon emissions relative to fossil fuel sources... Most of us remember Chernobyl, or even Three-Mile Island, which is now owned by Exelon, not to mention all the slightly less catastrophic examples of nuclear waste causing environmental hazards. Exelon had another recent scandal in Pennsylvania, in which it waited four years to reveal that tritium (radioactive hydrogen) had leaked into groundwater. And what happens to all the spent fuel rods and radioactive waste from nuclear energy generation? Can we keep burying it in concrete and metal, putting it in mountains or under the ocean? Maybe we can embed it into the fiberglass used to make these "Cool Globes." Then we wouldn't have to use the electricity required to light them at night. They would glow from within---Hey, even greener!
The rough-hewn chisel marks all over the sculpture even seem to resemble the unique pattern of epidermal ridges we use to identify individuals. I saw this wooden footprint initially as a symbol of Jesus different from the cruciform normally in front of a church. Instead of commemorating his gruesome death and sacrifice, it seemed to symbolize his travels, the foot-worn path he took to find others who would carry his message to the world. Maybe this evangelical church is using the maple as a symbol of Christ's power and pervasiveness. Like the maple, his feet are dense and hard, his seeds are everywhere, and like the spinners, those who carry his message are not easy to sweep away.
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