{"id":348266,"date":"2025-12-14T13:23:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T13:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/348266\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T13:23:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T13:23:26","slug":"mark-feldtkellers-work-to-be-installed-in-roundabout-dec-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/348266\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Feldtkeller\u2019s work to be installed in roundabout Dec. 15"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Feldtkeller\u2019s public art piece \u201cLook In Up\u201d is scheduled to be dedicated at the roundabout of Back o\u2019 Beyond Road, Indian Cliffs Road and State Route 179 on Monday, Dec. 15, at 3 p.m.<\/p>\n

Attendees for the event can meet at Sedona United Methodist Church, located at 110 Indian Cliffs Road before walking over.<\/p>\n

This is the final work to be installed from the group of artists Susan Kliewer, Don Kennell, Lisa Adler and James Muir, all selected in 2022 by the Sedona Arts and Culture selection committee for placement in area roundabouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel flattered, honored and humbled that I would be chosen to be a gateway piece like this,\u201d Feldtkeller said. \u201cI\u2019ve put my heart and soul into it [and] it\u2019s going to be pretty awe-inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cosmologically inspired, \u201cLook in Up\u201d is an instal\u00adlation composed of three approximately 9-foot trav\u00adertine limestone columns with a central 5.5-foot-tall Shiva lingam topped with a crystal. The columns\u2019 bases are carved with symbols from six ancient cultures and their tops crowned with hundreds of hand-shaped crystals arranged as night-sky constellations.<\/p>\n

\"\"Feldtkeller leans against one of his sculptures at his Sedona home on Nov. 29. David Jolkovski\/Larson Newspapers<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Look In Up\u2019 was created based on the fact our culture is consumed with technology. Early cultures looked to the heavens for connection,\u201d the city of Sedona stated. \u201cHis piece is meant for us to look within ourselves and up at the constella\u00adtions, which are carved in columns and displayed with colored crystal constella\u00adtions. Ancient Egyptian and aborigine hieroglyphs, as well as Native American symbolism is carved into the columns, anchored by a sacred geometry base.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work is grounded in four other ancient cultures: Mayan, Nazca Line\/Incan, Hopi and Sumerian and each column has carvings representing two cultures at their bases with signifi\u00adcant symbols.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe centerpiece will [have] \u2026 a crystal on top of it,\u201d Feldtkeller said. \u201cThat crystal will ulti\u00admately, not this year, but hopefully summer of \u201926 \u2014 have a core through the column to the northeast, east, east-northeast that will align with the summer solstice sunrise for about five minutes. Through that core, through that column, the sun will pierce into the crystal and bring it into a reflective glow.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was originally worried that he wouldn\u2019t get the alignment right at Back o\u2019 Beyond but \u201cit will align at 6:10 a.m. on the 21st of June.\u201d<\/p>\n

After relocating to Arizona in 1984, Feldtkeller moved to Sedona in 1999 and raised four children. He began his career as a jeweler, specializing in diamond setting and fine carving, but transitioned into larger fabrication work and he began working extensively in stone after 2010, which eventually led to the large-scale sculptural work he creates today.<\/p>\n

\"\"mark Feldtkeller created a maquette of his sculpture \u201cLook In Up\u201d at a city event in 2021. Photo courtesy of city of Sedona<\/p>\n

His background in jewelry still appears throughout the piece. Each star and constellation in upper two-thirds of the columns required shaping and polishing individual crystals which are skills he gained from years of gem-setting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked a lot with diamond wheels and stone setting, so that was a pretty easy task for me,\u201d Feldtkeller said. \u201cThey\u2019re beautiful, they\u2019re bril\u00adliant; they actually reflect a ton of light depending on the direction of the sun. They\u2019re all shaded slightly \u2014 stars are not just one color. There\u2019s amber, there\u2019s rose, there\u2019s blue, and there\u2019s clear. So each of the constellations [and] I think there are a couple hundred stars total in the columns \u2014 has a slight tint of those four colors. Some of the constellations repre\u00adsent accurately to those colors\u201d in \u201cLook In Up.\u201d<\/p>\n

To support the bases and the geometry of the piece, Feldtkeller constructed a three-foot-tall terrace. The four cardinal directions are marked in redstone, which city staffers helped carve. The work is full of \u201ccryptic\u201d details and layered symbolism. He hopes someone might notice a constellation, a petroglyph or a Sumerian carving as a child and decades later see some\u00adthing entirely new in the same sculpture when they have children of their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy inspiration was based in doing art that drew people to think and to do something that kind of opened up the span of the history of man,\u201d Feldtkeller said. \u201cPeople can look at things in the work, and maybe somebody\u2019s driving by the roundabout with their grandson, and he notices the constellation Orion\u2019s Belt or maybe the Sumerian carvings. But 50 years later, he\u2019s driving with his own grandson and he will see something totally different, the work is kind of designed to kind of evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Correction: The story initially stated the roundabout was at \u201cBack o\u2019 Beyond Road, Indian Cliffs Road and State Route 89A,\u201d when it should have read \u201cBack o\u2019 Beyond Road, Indian Cliffs Road and State Route 179.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Feldtkeller\u2019s public art piece \u201cLook In Up\u201d is scheduled to be dedicated at the roundabout of Back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-348266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}