Prospectus #205 Santa Fe Community College

Commission Project The Books by David Rudolph

Budget: $84,250

Santa Fe Community College is the gateway to individual and community success by providing affordable, high quality educational programs that serve the social, cultural, technological, and economic needs of the diverse Santa Fe community. Established in 1983, SFCC has grown rapidly, both in enrollment and campus expansion. Today, the college serves more than 8,000 students in any given semester in its credit, noncredit and adult basic education programs.

The college’s campus is situated on 366 acres off Richards Avenue, south of Rodeo Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Construction has been guided by a long-range campus development plan, first adopted in 1984. The Health Sciences Building will be dedicated to labs, classrooms and offices for offering health career programs as well as for science related instruction. In addition, the building will house a dental clinic to be operated by Santa Fe’s La Familia Medical Center.

The Local Selection Committee at Santa Fe Community College anticipates the artwork commissioned for this project will be highly interactive, instructive, thought provoking, pleasant, fascinating and connected to the core values of this community based institution of higher learning.

David Rudolph from Santa Fe, NM was awarded the commission. The artwork was installed in April 2012.

A famous quote from Albert Einstein is that “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Imagination also encourages continuous innovation and lifetime learning, which is the point of departure for David Rudolph’s proposal for Santa Fe Community College. Rudolph’s installation of “The Books” will use this concept to connect SFCC with the Santa Fe community.

The project will be a series of larger than life concrete books installed along the walkway connecting the existing courtyard to the new Health Sciences Building. Rudolph intends to pay homage to the printed word using easily recognizable imagery to engage the viewer’s sense of invention and creativity. The sculptures at once could be emerging, sinking or excavated from an archaeological site in this soon to be newly animated space.