Matchbrush

2016

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Sector

Public Art

Client

Edith Sanford Breast Center

+ Project Details

Abstract

Two artistic epoxy terrazzo floors for the Edith Sanford Breast Center, poured in 6-colors depicting matchbrush, a healing plant of the South Dakota prairie the Lakota call peji zizi.

Narrative

Inspired by medicinal plants found on the prairies of South Dakota, this artistic terrazzo design weaves together four-, five-, and eight-sided symmetric forms to bring calm, stability, and beauty to the lobby of the Edith Sanford Breast Center in Sioux Falls. The flower depicted in these two designs holds particular meaning as a healing plant. The Lakota know this flower as peji zizi, meaning yellow herb. In English it is matchbrush (Gutierrezia sarothrae). Its blooms carry three to seven ray petals. The plant contains limonene, a compound researchers have studied in early clinical trials as a possible cancer therapy, including in patients with breast cancer. My intent is that the designs for these two floors help to offer respite, contemplation, and healing to visitors at this hospital.

The terrazzo floor medallion of a stylized six-petal matchbrush flower in blue, cream, and white, set in the sunlit two-story rotunda of the Edith Sanford Breast Center, with the registration desk beyond.

A close overhead view of the smaller second-floor terrazzo matchbrush medallion, its layered cream, tan, and blue petals radiating from a small star center, framed by a speckled aggregate border and waiting-area chairs at the Edith Sanford Breast Center.

A close-up of the terrazzo matchbrush medallion's center, where a small dark six-point star sits within fine white inlay lines, surrounded by a five-sided band and the polished cream and tan petals with their embedded stone aggregate at the Edith Sanford Breast Center.

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