Naperville rededicates art wall portraying 'Search for Knowledge'
The search for knowledge is on once again outside Nichols Library in downtown Naperville.
A sculpture wall - "Man's Search for Knowledge Through the Ages" - was rededicated Wednesday afternoon, marking the completion of a yearlong process to piece and paint it back together after it was damaged in a crash.
The 50-foot-long, 7-foot-tall, curved wall of brown brick was "teetering" on July 15, 2016, when an 81-year-old driver crashed into it, said Brand Bobosky, chairman of Century Walk Corp., a public art nonprofit with 48 pieces throughout Naperville.
It rained that day as staff members of Naperville Public Library helped gather pieces of the structure that fell from a hole maybe 4 feet wide and 5 feet tall in the structure at the northeast corner of Jefferson Avenue and Webster Street, said Julie Rothenfluh, the library's executive director.
By chance, a Naperville resident who is vice president of marketing for a masonry and concrete repair firm saw a photo of the damage on Facebook.
"It was knocked off its foundation pretty dramatically," said Jeff Dickson of Eugene Matthews Inc. in Broadview, who quickly offered to help.
Century Walk hired Dickson's company to realign the wall and "preserve the front of the structure for a nice, clean usable canvas," he said. The process was meticulous, with masons numbering each brick so it could be placed back in proper position.
Once the wall became a canvas again, artist Diosdado "Dodie" Mondero stepped in. Mondero is Century Walk's public art curator and the creator of his own downtown Naperville artwork including the "Pillars of the Community" mural at Chicago Avenue and Main Street and parts of the "Naperville Loves a Parade" mural in an alley west of Main Street.
It was his first time restoring an art wall, so he "winged it," to some extent, he said. He found a special clay at a special effects store - the kind of stuff used to make monster masks, he said - and used it to match the motif of the existing bricks. He topped that off with exterior paint, then a power washing and sealant for finishing touches.
Images Mondero recreated show mathematical equations, music, architecture, literature, dancers, a space station and the universe - all objects original artist Mara Smith of Seattle included in the piece before it first was dedicated in 1987. The recreated sculpture shows other pursuits in "Man's Search for Knowledge Through the Ages," using the sea to represent the beginning of time, open books and the tree of knowledge to represent learning.
Restoration of the sculpture cost about $50,000 - $8,000 more than it cost to commission it 30 years ago.
"We're just very pleased that the wall's been able to be repaired," Rothenfluh said. "To see it all put back together - we're very excited."