Core Values

Mayor General George A. White Headquarters, Oregon Military Department, Salem, Oregon
2019
Starphire glass with photoresist etched images, colored glass, paint, mirrored steel, stainless steel hardware, aluminum base channels
32" x 291" x 11"
Commissioned by the Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Military Department

Core Values is a set of eight glass panels installed in a lobby wall niche at the headquarters of the Oregon Military Department.

The clear glass carries a subtle, frost-etched, photorealistic image of the whole state, read from west to east: the Oregon coast, the Willamette Valley and the Columbia River Gorge, the Cascade Range, and the Blue and Wallowa Mountains. The landmarks appear almost as a reflection, as if they stood just behind the viewer crossing the lobby. Aluminum channels at the base of each panel are engraved with the National Guard's core values: Loyalty, Duty, Excellence, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage.

A second layer sits behind the glass. Colored glass discs, mounted proud of the wood backer wall and seen through openings cut in the panels, are etched with imagery from the military museum's archive and from conversations with National Guard personnel, depicting the work the Guard does in service to the state. From across the lobby the work reads as a landscape. Up close, it becomes a more intimate record of service.