Hope

Charles Huntington, Mayo Clinic

Installation Date: 1983

Materials: Steel Sculpture

Description:

Property of Mayo Clinic.

Standing approximately 3 ft by 9 ft on a 20-in pedestal, Hope is an abstract cast and painted steel configuration in bright orange. Depending on the viewer's imagination, a variety of symbols can be perceived in the sculpture. The individual letters of the word hope can be divined from the curves and angles. A figure eight—the symbol for infinity, a component of the enduring nature of hope—can also be inferred. The bright orange color suggests the fire of life, and the silver of the metal edges could invoke a silver-lined cloud. Like the emotion of hope, a feeling that is sometimes elusive and must be sought out, visitors to Rochester need to look in a somewhat out-of-the-way corner off the beaten path to get a close-up view of the sculpture. Hope was commissioned by the Ronald Raimondo family and presented to Mayo Foundation in memory of Barbara Raimondo in May 1983. It is located between the Conrad Hilton Building and the Mitchell Student Center on the Mayo Clinic Rochester campus. A small walkway of pavers provides visitors a more intimate view of Hope.

About the artist:

Charles Huntington, an American Indian artist of Ojibwe descent, was born in Niagara, Wis, on May 29, 1925. His family moved to the Minneapolis-St Paul area when he was an infant, and his formative years were spent there. After a 4-year tour of duty in the US Navy from 1942 to 1946 and subsequent employment as an auto mechanic, Huntington attended the Minneapolis School of Art (now known as the Minnesota College of Art and Design) for 1 year (1959-1960). For the next 3 years, he was an assistant to Paul Granlund (1925-2003), another well-known Minnesota sculptor who was an artist-in-residence at Gustavus Adolphus College in St Peter, Minn. Huntington honed his skills in sculpture under Granlund's tutelage, learning to build sculptures from found objects and by casting metal. He was invited to be an artist-in-residence for the Minneapolis Public School system and is the subject of a Minneapolis Public School teacher's guide on Native American art and artists.

© 2007 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)61284-6/fulltext