TITLE:

Crossroads

ARTIST:

Karen Yank

LOCATION:

Colorado Avenue & Columbia Street

YEAR INSTALLED:

2024

“Crossroads serves as a monument to the innovative individuals that transformed Bend from a historic lumber-mill town into the enchanting artistic and cultural place one can live in and visit today. My design embraces Bend’s history in the timber industry with a set of crossing logs, which create a beautiful waterfall along the rocky cliffs of the Deschutes River,” said artist Karen Yank.

The sculpture is made of Corten and stainless steel by artist Karen Yank from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Materials like steel and stainless steel are Karen Yank’s chosen medium. The circular forms and intersecting lines that she is constantly drawn to reference all that is natural, such as the sun, moon, earth, cycles of life, time and repetition. For Yank, the circle also represents the notion of unity while the “X” reflects transitional themes of crossing, intersecting, joining, and marking a point in time or space. The two symbols combined are emblematic of her affection for the world.

Karen’s mentor was the contemporary artist Agnes Martin, who is well known for her minimalist grid paintings and drawings composed of horizontal and vertical lines. Yank adopted the circle, a shape mimicking the curve where the earth meets the sky, as her more organic signature shape. The circle is all-encompassing, eternal symbol of nature, and one Yank loves to juxtapose with her industrial metal materials.

Yank’s sculptures are included in numerous museum and public collections, including the New Mexico Museum of Art, Albuquerque Museum, NMSU Art Museum, New Mexico State Capital Art Collection, and the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in NYC. Karen has completed over fifty large-scale public commissions.