Above the Crowd, '98

Harry Above the Crowd, Steel, ceramic tile, and concrete, 35’ x 14’ x14’. Located at City Hall. Tempe, AZ. 

Harry Above the Crowd, commemorates Tempe Mayor Harry Mitchell. The base of the sculpture uses printed tiles to create a timeline. Fragments of history (news articles, budgets, blue prints), placed chronologically, create a spiral path referencing the history of Tempe. 

“A soaring, 35-foot-tall depiction of a beloved city councilman, 1970-78, and mayor, 1978-1994, as a stilt walker. Creator John Randall Nelson intended the exaggerated dimensions of “Harry Above the Crowd” to represent Harry Mitchell’s “heightened sense of potential and accomplishment.” Not coincidentally, live stilt walkers regularly stroll the city’s Mill Avenue during spring and fall Tempe Festival of the Arts.” Lisa Polacheck, Where Magazine, 2015