Artist says Aurora library sculpture contains a mystery

Jim Jenkins, creator of the ring-like sculpture in the plaza leading to the west entry of the downtown Santori Public Library of Aurora, says there is a mystery contained within.

The mystery may be solved, he suggests, but for now, he hopes visitors and passers-by will have their "brains activated" by the piece, "Deus ex Machina."

"Art starts with a compelling image that gets attention," Jenkins said on a recent library visit. "This is usually done with the materials used. It may be the bright, shiny object in your periphery, which in turn causes you to say, 'What is that thing over there?'"

Whether people call the sculpture "that thing over there," or "Stargate," or by its actual name isn't important. "It's whatever leads people to engage with the piece," Jenkins said.

"Stargate" was the name of a 1994 movie about an interstellar teleportation device. Because of "Deus ex Machina's" similar shape, it earned that nickname almost immediately.

Like Chicago's "Cloudgate," nicknamed "The Bean," "Deus ex Machina" will speak to each person differently.

"People call it 'Stargate' because that's what they connect with as a guidepost," Jenkins said. "People will see what they want to see, and some people will really want to understand it. But if 'Stargate' is what they connect with, and it leads them to engage with the piece, then that's a good thing."

Jenkins learned last fall that the Aurora Public Library Foundation would be commissioning a 3-D public art piece for the exterior of the Santori Library. He tossed around possible ideas for about a month.

"Over Thanksgiving weekend 2014, I sat down to think about it seriously," he said. "I meditated first, and when I came back to this reality, the piece was there."

He spent that weekend creating the concept drawings and writing a letter of proposal. He carried his submission to the library on the following Monday.

In December, he learned he had won the commission, which was made possible through a donation from the Dunham Fund. Jenkins also has been commissioned to create sculptures for the public libraries in St. Charles and New Lenox, which he said suits him because "libraries are my favorite place on earth."

Although the piece came to Jenkins after a time of meditation, he said, the real work started many years earlier. "Things come to me, but it is a matter of the books I read, the music I listen to, the notes I make. It's a process of thinking about art most of the time."

What does "Deus ex Machina" mean to the artist?

"It means a lot to me because there are so many layers embedded in the piece," he said. "My hope is that people will look at the letters. There are people who get my work, but it's not an easy road to follow. It's meant to flip a switch on in people's heads."

One side of the sculpture reads "Deus ex Machina." "It means 'God from the machine,'" Jenkins said. "It's a literary device invented by the Greeks. It's the thing that would solve all the problems an author created in his play."

This idea also ties in with the new Santori Library, because the library is a means to solve problems, especially with all the new technology within, he notes.

"Superman is a Deus ex Machina. Ironman is a Deus ex Machina," Jenkins said. "They are the superheroes that come in to solve the problems."

The other side of the sculpture reads "Ego Eigenstate."

"Ego," Jenkins said. "Everyone has one. Some are bigger than others. It means 'I.'"

"A physicist coined the word 'eigenstate.' It talks about quantum states and particles at that level. Very small things. It's the uncertainty principle. It's the known and the unknown, and that ties in with how the library works. If you don't know something, come in and find out."

Jenkins is working on a display that will contain a book, drawings, photographs, a DVD and other information that will tell the story of the sculpture's creation. He hopes it is ready to be installed by mid-August. It will be located on the second floor of the Santori Library near the Kortnee Goodalis Music Room.

The book will contain information that may solve the mystery of the sculpture.

A hint to the mystery is to look at the two disks that were added to the sculpture just before its completion.

"The shape of them is reminiscent of cultivation disks used on farms," Jenkins said. "They are used to promote the growth of seeds."

The disks were inspired by cultivator disks given to him 18 years ago from a friend's farm, Jenkins said.

"In thinking about what this place does, and that it's in the Midwest, I decided the idea is that you plant seeds here and you hope they get cultivated."

There is Japanese writing on one side of the disk and Chinese on the other, Jenkins said, adding, "Those contain the two mysteries that will be solved in the book."

Jenkins grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, and received a degree in sculpture from the University of Iowa. He always knew he was an artist, he said.

"My mother was a seamstress and my father was a mechanic," Jenkins said. "There were always materials around and I was always making something. My earliest memories were of me standing by my mom's sewing machine and sewing with her. I was about 3 at the time."

Although he knew he was talented, like any other artist, he also knew he had to practice his art. "You may have some talent, but if you don't practice, it never goes anywhere," he said.

Although he would have loved to have made art his career straight out of school, things didn't turn out that way.

But he did have the opportunity to work in manufacturing, first in making furniture and then in making large, industrial fabrications used in air handling. These jobs lasted for 11 years each.

Because he was exposed to engineering, his education was broadened, he said, and he could bring what he had learned to the process of making art.

His wife was extremely supportive of him making art his full-time endeavor.

"She said, if you don't make art at this stage of life, you'll never do it."

It was 20 years ago when he started his art "practice," as he calls it.

"It is very disciplined work. Every day I write, I draw, I work with materials. That's every day - even Sunday. It's my life. Some days it is work, but it's what I do."

Jenkins, who has a studio in Batavia at Water Street Studios and now lives in Geneva, said the company that did the laser cutting of the letters in the sculpture and the elements that he later welded in was My-Lin Fabricating of Aurora.

More information on Jenkins' work is available at www.JenkinsArts.com.