As part of the construction of its newly renovated community center, the city installed Apricot Walk, one of its latest public-art projects, in December 2003.

The project's canvas extends from the skate park on Campbell Avenue all the way to the handball courts on the other side of the center, close to Latimer Avenue. Yet despite its size, most people hardly know it's there as they walk through the center.

Made of three different colors of cement, the walkway's apricot, sand and red hues were chosen to remind visitors of Campbell's agricultural past, says artist Sheila Ghidini, who designed Apricot Walk. But the colors are only part of the project.

In four places around the walkway are sections of concrete that Ghidini had stamped with apricot shapes and grid patterns, inspired in large part by photographs she'd seen at the Campbell Historical Museum.

In envisioning the project, she spent a lot of time at the museum researching the city's history, she says, explaining that she needed to make the artwork site-specific. While perusing photographs, she saw numerous pictures of how Campbell growers laid acres of apricots on trays in the sun for drying.

"There were fields and fields of them," she says, explaining the inspiration for the grids. "And because of the importance of apricots and agriculture in Campbell, I decided to use the apricot theme."

Despite its size and importance, however, Apricot Walk isn't gaining much attention from those walking along its path—maybe because the art is the sidewalk.

"I noticed the roughness of some areas of the sidewalk," says Campbell resident George Carlson, stretching his legs a few feet from one of the patches of stamped cement. "But I didn't think much about them, because I'm usually too busy worrying about getting a run in before I go back to work."

Stephanie Go, another Campbell resident, also had no idea what she was looking at when she finally noticed the group of apricot shapes near her parked car.

"It would help if they had put some kind of plaque or podium nearby explaining what this was all about," she says.

But the design wasn't meant to jump out at people, says Campbell Public Works Director Bob Kass.

"Being such a big facility, we wanted something that could be discovered throughout the community center," he says.

Set in motion by Kass and spearheaded by Campbell Public Works Analyst Zarka Popovic, the city's public-art program began five years ago, to add "pizazz to Campbell's capital projects," Kass says.

The projects, however, were never intended to be monumental, Popovic adds, explaining that even more important than size, the projects that Campbell would approve need to be integral to the structure. And, as Ghinini noted earlier, they have to be site-specific.

Indeed, of the five public-art installations put in place since 1999, only one can be seen easily from afar.

Installed at Edith Morley Park in May 2001, The Spirit of Water by Glen Rodgers is a series of large metal shapes mounted on the wall of a private building facing the park. It can be seen by motorists driving along Technology Park Drive near McGlincy Avenue.

"That project is actually unusual in that it's a public work of art on private property," Popovic says. "When we approached the building owner with the idea of using his wall as a canvas, he was super cooperative and was all for the idea."

The first of the public-art projects, installed in May 1999 at John D. Morgan Park, however, was modest by comparison to the Spirit piece. It involved middle school children painting fish on ceramic tiles and mounting them on a playground wall. The children drew the fish under the guidance of the project's artist, Glen Rodgers.

In June 2002, when Campbell erected its new public downtown garage between Second and Third streets, it installed six free-standing panels of mixed-media artwork by Tom Askman on the sides of the parking-lot entrances.

In December 2003, it installed Apricot Walk at the community center. And in February of 2004, the city installed its newest project—titled Fishing with Rodger—which consists of numerous glass balls floating in the reflection ponds in front of the Heritage Theatre.

To ensure a seamless integration of the glass balls with the overall Heritage Theatre project, the artist, Cork Marcheschi, was brought into project discussions from the beginning.

"The nature of public art is collaboration," says Marcheschi, drawing a comparison between public art and fine art, which he says is highly individualistic. "In public art, you are not given a blank canvas; you are appointed a space."

He says when he first looked at the Heritage Theatre project, he realized that because the building was a historic landmark, there weren't many things he could do to the building itself.

"Basically," he says, "the only thing that was free game was the reflecting ponds."

Marcheschi, a Bay Area­based sculptor and glassworker, says the concept for the floating balls came by way of Japanese fishing floats, which are glass balls sewn or knotted into fishing nets and used to give the nets buoyancy.

He was inspired to create the art through fond memories of time spent fishing with his late grandfather, Rodger.

"We were just two guys out in a boat in San Francisco on Lake Merced, watching our plastic bobbers, waiting for a bite," he says. "They were magical days."

With the Heritage Theatre project, he tried to evoke the same sense of magic through his art.

"I wanted to create the most beautiful, captivating work of art possible," says Marcheschi, who has public-art pieces installed all around the United States, Europe and Asia. "I wanted to create a great interplay of light that had never been seen before."

To do this, he would blow abstract designs onto his glass orbs that would resemble things "as microscopic as plankton to things as macroscopic as nebulae." And he would illuminate the balls from below.

As beautiful as they may be, he says, they aren't fragile.

"They're definitely not potato chips in the wind," he says. "They're pretty damn tough."

Kass says that toughness was important.

"We were concerned about vandalism," he says. "Because they'd be in a public place, the last thing we wanted was for the glass balls to break if someone threw rocks at them."

The longevity is important for other reasons, as well. Fishing with Rodger will be one of the last public art projects in Campbell for a while to come, says Popovic.

"Campbell's next public-art installation will be in the dog park being planned at the Los Gatos Creek Trail Park," says Popovic. "Other than that, there aren't any capital projects coming anytime soon."