Saratoga News

Photograph by John Todd

Heather Donaldson used slate to fashion this cubical fountain for a Saratoga garden.

Artistic water sculptor makes a splash

Mud pies, fingerpaints led Saratogan on an artistic path

By Shari Kaplan

From the soft sounds of a babbling brook to the refreshing splash of a waterfall, Heather Donaldson's water sculptures encompass it all.

The Saratoga resident does not actually make sculptures out of water, but rather uses natural materials to sculpt fountains over which water then trickles, bubbles or cascades.

A native of Marin County, Donaldson, 29, says she's been attracted to water and working with her hands since her youth. She's also been known to lie along the banks of rivers just to stare at and listen to the water. Her artwork has definitely come a long way since her earliest childhood specialties of mud pies and fingerpaintings.

In high school, she took art classes and concentrated on ceramics. She recalls spending time working with clay to make it look like crystal or rock, and then came to a realization.

"I thought, 'Why am I taking all this time trying to make clay look like these other things when I can actually be sculpting in them?' " she says. She took this inspiration to the Rhode Island School of Design, from which she received her bachelor's degree in the early 1990s. She made her first fountain for her senior thesis--a four-foot-tall ceramic sculpture resembling three standing stones.

"It was amazing how people were drawn to it. I couldn't believe some people were drinking out of it!" she says, smiling at the memory. Now her works draw people in more private settings, including back yards in Saratoga and Los Gatos and throughout the Bay Area.

"Whenever there's a fountain in someone's yard, I guarantee people will want to go right up to it and put their hands in the water and touch it," she adds. Along with fountains' tactile appeal, their other main attribute, she says, is their sound, which she calls "psychologically cooling."

Using materials such as slate, concrete and glass, Donaldson makes assemblages in many sizes and shapes--some very large--and works to keep the pieces in harmony both with their own natural variations and with the surroundings in which she installs them. Clients' reasons for having fountains are many, although she says some include adding tranquillity and blocking road noise. Fountains also take a natural wonder usually only seen on the grand scale--think Yosemite's Bridalveil Falls--and make it accessible.

Donaldson works on-site when she can; not only is it difficult to move her larger pieces from her studio, but she also feels more inspired when working in the places where the fountains will stand. Self-taught in all the heavy work, Donaldson mixes and pours concrete, chisels rock, cuts and assembles steel infrastructures and installs electrical water pumps.

Although the end products are all different, one thing stays the same: Donaldson's enthusiasm. "I like to be involved in every step of what's going on for the piece. It's hard work. But it's very exciting--from starting it to plugging in the pump and watching it go. It's like Christmas!" she says with a smile.

Donaldson can be reached at 872-1212.

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