By Carolyn Leal
Inez Lui calls her sculpture, now in the courtyard of Saratoga City Hall, "Koi Komb." The red cedar sculpture is shaped like a comb and the carved koi swim across it.
It's a restful sculpture, and that's just as the 26-year-old artist planned it. "Everything now is very high tech, and I wanted this to have a sense of meditation, a sense of slowness," Lui said.
The city of Saratoga would like to have Lui's work as its first piece of public art. But the city has no money to purchase the piece, which was appraised by a San Francisco gallery at $8,500.
"We would like it if some citizen or corporation would come forward and purchase it," said Jennifer Britton, asistant to the city manager. "But the city is not in a financial position to even consider it."
Lui has had another of her works--a ceramic piece depicting 12 cups with signs of the Zodiac--purchased by De Anza College for permanent display. That piece, "Twelve Spices," won a national award from the League of Innovation.
"Koi Komb" has been on view as a loan from the artist since September.
"Koi Komb" took Lui more than eight months to create, using specialized tools worth some $1,000. The gravel on which it is placed represents water, and the waves of gravel are waves created by the water coming through the teeth of the comb, she explained. The comb and the water represent femininity.
She said she wanted the entire piece to be natural and not to include any materials like steel or iron. This required special assistance from Mike Cooper, her instructor at De Anza College, and Moto Ohtake, who helped with construction of the piece.
"I used wood dowels because metal would have been too industrial. I did the sculpture to soothe people's minds," the artist said. "I hope this will be a place for meditation."
Lui said the courtyard is a good home for the sculpture because of nearby Japanese maple trees and an Asian feeling to the city's architecture. The piece is on loan to the city through September 1997.
"It would be wonderful if a public-spirited person would purchase this for the city to keep the piece permanently," said Marguerite Fischer, Lui's friend and agent.
The artist was born in Sacramento and raised in Taiwan. She studies ceramics, sculpture and furniture design at De Anza College. Another of her current works is a cabinet with 100 drawers, inspired by a Chinese pharmacy cabinet.
She attended a high school in Taiwan focused on art, but coming to the U.S. "opened my eyes," she says.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, November 13, 1996.
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