By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Welsh sculptor David Nash (left) directs Wesley Brock (center) and Philip Anderson of the Cincinnati Park Board during the final adjustment of Mash's sculpture. (Gary Landers photos) | ZOOM |

From a distance, the tall, fire-singed and free-form oak "vessels" look like a circle of Druids that have chosen an unlikely place of worship, near the railroad tracks at the intersection of Baines Street and Eastern Avenue.

Contemplating "Seven Vessels Ascending/Descending" from a closer vantage, the new work by Welsh sculptor David Nash is something else entirely: It is part of Cincinnati's growing international reputation for art.

The $100,000 "Seven Vessels" is the first commissioned work for the Cincinnati Park Board and the first for the new Theodore M. Berry International Friendship Park along the Ohio River east of downtown.

Seven 14- to 15-foot tapering forms occupy the center of the park's Plaza of the Sun, acting both as a sundial and an astronomical piece that marks the solstice and the equinox.

Nash talks about his sculpture during the unloading for installation Thursday morning. | ZOOM |

It's no accident that the dedication of "Vessels" will be today, the summer solstice, at 2 p.m. Nash would be happy if people arrived half an hour early.

Friday afternoon he was overseeing the final aspects of its installation. He stood at the form facing due south and pointed to a small square outlined in black marker on its pedestal.

"True noon here is 1:38 p.m.," he noted - the exact time when, on the summer solstice, sunlight will come shining through a long notch in the wood to the point on the pedestal. "It's one of the prime moments in the year for this piece."

Steve Schuckman, superintendent for the Park Board's planning and design division, expects the Nash sculpture to be an "attracter" for the park, a place to "contemplate as well as recreate."

The Park Board also gets bragging rights for having Nash's first public commission in the United States.

Nash, whose environmental work has made him one of today's most prominent sculptors, has nothing but praise for the Park Board's efforts, but noted that he avoids public commissions.

He added that he doesn't expect to do another one anytime soon. That would add more cachet to Cincinnati's new piece of public art.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com