After being out of the spotlight for several years, an iconic\u00a0San Antonio piece of art is back on display for the public \u2014 just in a new home.<\/p>\n
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The 23-foot-tall, 14,000-pound bright-yellow sculpture known as the Flor de Esperanza \u2014 Spanish for “Flower of Hope” \u00a0\u2014 was on display for years on the campus of University Hospital in northwest San Antonio. The piece was moved in 2019 when construction started on University Health’s Women\u2019s & Children\u2019s Hospital, and had been stored on private property since then.<\/p>\n
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Gabriel Ybarra keeps an eye on the rigging for the Flor de Esperanza sculpture as it was moved to its new home on the campus of University Health’s Palo Alto Hospital on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Robin Jerstad\/For the Express-News<\/p>\n
Luis Torres and Carl Wentrcek of Howell Crane discuss moving the\u00a0Flor de Esperanza sculpture on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Robin Jerstad\/For the Express-News<\/p>\n
Mario Arizola and Gabriel Ybarra prepares the base of the Flor de Esperanza sculpture at its new home on the campus of University Health’s Palo Alto Hospital.<\/p>\n
Robin Jerstad\/For the Express-News<\/p>\n
Crew members lower\u00a0the\u00a0Flor de Esperanza sculpture into place on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Robin Jerstad\/For the Express-News<\/p>\n
Simon and Autumn Saleh work to weld the\u00a0Flor de Esperanza sculpture onto its base.<\/p>\n
Robin Jerstad\/For the Express-News<\/p>\n
Crew members work to place the\u00a0Flor de Esperanza sculpture on the campus of University Health’s Palo Alto Hospital.<\/p>\n
Robin Jerstad\/For the Express-News<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, crews moved the artwork to its new home, the campus of University Health\u2019s Palo Alto Hospital, which is under construction on the South Side.<\/p>\n
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The sculpture is the work of acclaimed Mexican artist\u00a0Sebasti\u00e1n, who was commissioned by University Health more than 12 years ago to\u00a0create the piece of art. Sebasti\u00e1n is also known for the famed La Antorcha de la Amistad (The Torch of Friendship) sculpture in downtown San Antonio.<\/p>\n
To make the Flor de Esperanza move happen, an eclectic group of people \u00a0\u2014 construction crew members, art curators and communication officers \u00a0\u2014 strapped on white hard hats and neon yellow safety vests Saturday morning as they awaited the artwork’s arrival.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The trip began at dawn, when a driver steered the trailer holding the sculpture from a site north of San Antonio International Airport onto U.S. 281. Passing drivers honked and gave thumbs up as the truck slowly rolled south. The sun was high in the sky when the big rig turned on to Jaguar Parkway toward the statue\u2019s new home.<\/p>\n
A 135-ton crane hoisted the statue to a plinth, where workers anchored it to the concrete surface. Allison Hays Lane,\u00a0 executive curator of University\u00a0Health’s SaludArte program, said the yellow sculpture would serve as a \u201cvibrant beacon\u201d for the South Side. Workers also installed a second, smaller\u00a0Sebasti\u00e1n sculpture, Espacio Tiempo (Space Time), in a garden on the hospital campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe want every door, university clinic and hospital to have that welcoming feeling,\u201d Hays Lane said. \u201cArt does heal and gives us that little bit of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hays Lane said said SaludArte supports University Health\u2019s mission of whole-person care through spaces adorned with paintings, photography, sculptures and site-specific commissions. She said research shows that thoughtful, designed health care can have a positive effect on a patient\u2019s experience. She said the team also wanted to integrate art into the hospitals that reflected the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so proud to work with this team,\u201d Hays Lane said, \u201cthe board of managers, leadership, doctors, nurses and everyday staff to build our program from the ground up. It has become a design standard for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the move, Flor de Esperanza had been stationed for several years at Wanderlust Ironworks, near Blossom Athletic Center, where it had been restored.<\/p>\n
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Wanderlust Ironworks owners Autumn and Simon\u00a0Saleh, themselves sculptors, placed the\u00a0Esperanza\u00a0where they\u2019d always see it \u2014 their front yard.<\/p>\n
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Workers adjust and set the Flor de Esperanza sculpture into place on Saturday morning. Clockwise from top left are Gabriel Ybarra, Simon Saleh\u00a0and Stephen Garcia.<\/p>\n
Robin Jerstad\/For the San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
\u201cWe enjoy getting to meet all the artists, get to know them and their stories,\u201d Autumn\u00a0Saleh said. \u201cIt inspires our own art. We get to get that knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Archivist and art program manager\u00a0Raquel Belden said it was an honor to see the Esperanza\u00a0installed on the South Side where she grew up.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis neighborhood has been historically underserved,\u201d Belden said, \u201cboth in terms of medicine and art resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
For crew member Gabriel\u00a0Ibarra, it was the second time he’d been\u00a0involved in move the sculpture. He was part of the team that transported the giant statue from University Hospital to Wanderlust Ironworks several years ago.<\/p>\n
Ibarra said the installation meant a lot to him. He was also born and raised on the South Side.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMy daughter goes to school at Texas A&M University-San Antonio,\u201d Ibarra said, as he pointed toward the nearby campus. \u201cI told her, \u2018When you pass by now and see the yellow statue, we put it up there.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After being out of the spotlight for several years, an iconic\u00a0San Antonio piece of art is back on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-397641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}