RDG in the Media: Huntington Beach Public Art Piece Featured

May 09, 2023
Public Art Parks & Open Space

The Daily Pilot, a newspaper published by the Los Angeles Times, features the recent unveiling of "To See Yourself in Nature," an art installation designed by the Art Studio at RDG Planning & Design.

Huntington Beach, California officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new art piece, called “To See Yourself in Nature,” on Thursday, May 4, 2023. Located just east of the Secret Garden in the city's Central Park, the piece was designed by the Art Studio at RDG Planning & Design senior partner and creative director Matt Niebuhr and principal emeritus David Dahlquist.

“What someone might think of as a butterfly might remind me — or could remind others — of feathers,” Niebuhr said. “In a different scale, it almost looks like feathers, and in another scale, all of the little squiggles almost start to look like particles of water. It was intentional, to try to have it be open. There’s never any right or wrong answer in art, but can you invite someone to contemplate a little bit or notice something? That’s part of what we’re trying to do, just point to some of the things that are here.”

Watch the public art unveiling of "To See Yourself in Nature."

The installation is the newest of more than 40 site-specific works located at beaches, parks and businesses throughout the city and explores nature’s horizontal plane of reflection, a reference to the conceptual design of the library, which sits directly behind the piece.

Click to read the full Daily Pilot / L.A. Times feature on the recent unveiling of "To See Yourself in Nature."

Written by Erin Van Zee, Communications Director