Suspended 12 stories high, “INDIGO WATERS” is a large scale, glass art sculpture. Thirty-three individually hand crafted panels of radiant blue glass are positioned in offset layers to reflect and refract light, celebrating San Diego’s beautiful energies of light and ocean. This outside public art piece spans 4 stories in height and weighs over 5,000 pounds yet playfully dances with changing light throughout the day. This elegant beacon of floating color inspires locals and visitors from the Gaslamp District to the ballpark, welcoming guests to the Hotel Indigo. You can play in the ocean and not get wet!

“Rhythmic wave relationships of shape and color form as I move vertically from shallow water to deep water. I move laterally from clear waters to turbid waters, thick with color and mystery. I celebrate calm waters and waters flowing with texture, I love our ocean,” said artist Lisa Schirmer , a long time San Diego resident. Schirmer truly enjoys dissecting nature's genius. “The Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Mean are great playgrounds.” These are mathematical concepts that appear in nature. When she started to contemplate the design possibilities for the Hotel Indigo, she thought of translating these proportional relationships into compositions of color and shape. These concepts are part of the philosophy of the Hotel Indigo's branding.

The artist creates the color indigo (a hue of blue) by mixing blues and purples. Lisa worked with several color contrasts. These contrasts are the luminosity of hue, light-dark contrasts, cool-warm contrasts, saturation and extension. She used these color contrasts to define her color chord. Combining two planes of individually colored hand painted glass, the artist created new color harmonies. This resulted in 33 individually tempered, laminated units of colored shape requiring over one year to complete. Each unit is 38”x38” and each weighs over 68 pounds. The Golden Mean inspired the shape of the painted units, a combination of a square and a quarter circle.

By rotating and repeating this one unit only, an entire body of water was created, celebrating the beautiful San Diego ocean. The 33 units arranged in the Fibonacci sequence elegantly fit onto the curved wall of the beautifully designed building, 12 stories high. The water image cascades down to the 9th floor. The blues of the glass harmonize with the coloring of the building. Combining traditional two dimensional design with three dimensional positioning, Schirmer extends her composition. As the San Diego sunlight moves through the enameled glass during the day, colors are mixed, spilling onto the curved surface of the wall, animating the composition.

The shaped color actually moves with the daily passage of time. “In researching the Hotel Indigo site, I recorded how the sun moved across the space. I wanted to celebrate a sense of light and a sense of time. I thought stained or ‘enameled’ glass was appropriate. It is a method of creating color that is six centuries old, and it is permanent. The Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Mean are ancient, timeless concepts. I appreciate the richness of the past minds. I value the extension of these past concepts into the present and the future, and I am thankful to celebrate God’s creation of color, nature and thought,” said the artist.

“THE GOLDEN MEAN IRONED OUT IN SILVER” Lisa Schirmer was commissioned to design the street level gates and the valet kiosk. The kiosk is ADA compatible. In addition, her design of the 9th Floor Terrace Privacy Screen is a beautiful foil for the San Diego skyline. These designs celebrate the Golden Mean in a body of silvery splashing waves. The metal was fabricated by Ocean Beach artisan Bill Brents. The InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG), Phelps Development and JWDA embraced the original Art Glass Sculpture, Metal Design and Photography throughout the hotel, employing many local artists and artisans.

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