ELORA – The unveiling of a massive sculpture at the Elora Centre for the Arts (ECFTA) is the culmination of hundreds of hours of work done over a period of years for a Hillsburgh-based artist.
Jefferson Campbell-Cooper’s sculpture made up of 101 donated bike rims assembled into a circular archway that goes into the ground will be shown to the public for the first time on tonight at 7 p.m. at the weekly free concerts held this summer outside at the ECFTA.
The sculpture is an arch that will be part of the outdoor Paths That Connect Us art project at the ECFTA, an accessible walking pathway around the arts centre property of outdoor art and sculptures.
While some are comparing the sculpture to a moongate, Campbell-Cooper said in an interview that wasn’t exactly the inspiration when he first started working on this project in 2021.
“It was more of the bicycle wheel, and the circle and the cycle, that kind of idea to pass through a wheel of wheels,” Campbell-Cooper said. “I thought that would be really interesting and would kind of charge the audience in a way with energy or electricity.”
It also represents the cycle of life, with Campbell-Cooper noting the bicycle pun, and a bit meta being essentially a wheel made of wheels. He said people can bring their own ideas about what the piece made of salvaged bike parts means.
“They’re from broken bikes or bikes that couldn’t be repaired … that idea of taking something that was garbage or detritus and giving it new life, going into the ground and coming back out,” he said.
ECFTA executive director Lianne Carter said in a press release this sculpture is a good fit for the pathway project’s theme of connection.
“We feature artist-designed maps along the pathway to encourage people to explore the bike and walking trails within our community, this bike rim sculpture is a strong visual connection to that,” she said in the release.
Campbell-Cooper, originally from the Elora area, has been working as an artist for nearly 25 years and in the past decade has done a lot of work involving bicycles or were bicycle-themed.
“It’s so easily accessible for people, it kind of has a childhood quality to it that just puts a smile on people’s faces,” he said on why he’s drawn to bicycles in his work. “The larger metallic work has become so grandiose and out of our human scale so I think that’s why I was after it. Even though the bicycle rim arch wheel of wheels sculpture there in Elora is large, people can pass through it because of the scale of the rim.”
Campbell-Cooper is happy to have this art piece out in the community but admitted he kind of misses having it in his yard.
The unveiling will take place on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the ECFTA. The free concert will feature local musician Kyle Burton.
