Art Town: Cost Plus globe!

We have a pretty unique art piece for this week’s Art Town. Normally, we discuss paintings on electrical boxes, or statues that everyone has seen. But this time, we’re making you crane your necks to look up!

You’ve all been to Cost Plus World Market, which shares a block with the movie theater.  I’d always noticed the big, metal globe on top of the building, but I had never taken a really close look.  It may be a tie to their logo, not unlike the circles at the back of the Target building on the corner of Ygnacio and California.  For new business construction, the city requires some sort of art work to accompany our streets and I believe this is exactly that, yet ties nicely with the business.  I may be wrong and if anybody has some insights, please share as I did not find any notations about this piece.

When you get up on the parking deck on the roof, you can actually see it up close behind the gate they have there. It’s much more intricate and detailed than you realize from the ground, and it really is a beautiful, random piece of art. Take a look at this up-close picture here to see the detail:

It almost looks like a nest, or a cage, or what the Earth might look like if only rivers and faults were mapped on a globe. It is all wound together so randomly, but there’s an order to it, as well. Truly a fascinating piece of artwork that many people might not even notice when they’re walking around downtown or parking on the top lot!