HEAVY METAL

Firehouse gets 10,000-pound sculpture.

An acclaimed New York artist is bringing his latest work to Tamarac, installing a 10,000-pound sculpture atop the city’s newest firehouse.

The artist Albert Paley will formally present his stainless-steel piece, “Vigilance,” at 10:30 a.m. today during a dedication ceremony for the fire station at 4801 W. Commercial Blvd.

Paley, whose studio is in Rochester, N.Y., said the artwork depicts “the symbolism and the identity of the firefighting profession,” such as the Maltese cross — which stands as a symbol of those who help people in distress. It also depicts axes, shovels and ladders.

The Tamarac piece, which is 75 feet long, was taken to Florida from New York in three sections on a flatbed truck.

The sculpture was put in place while the interior of Fire Station 78 was still under construction, and it was a massive undertaking involving engineers and inspections to make sure it met codes for wind, and the walls could even support it.

The $100,000 used to pay for the work comes from fees paid by developers to be used for public-art projects.

“We were just lucky to get him,” said Tamarac’s Public Art Committee chair Tobey Archer. “Even his title is wonderful.”

Paley’s 60 projects include the archway for the entrance to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, a sculpture at the St. Louis Zoo, and displays in Europe and Asia.

Next up is a piece at a development called “500 Ocean” in Boynton Beach that will become a mixed-use project of shops, 341 luxury apartments and public spaces, taking up a city block on Federal Highway.

He always works in steel, he said. “You can do something small and precise or a 10-story building,” Paley said. “You have the greatest flexibility — you can bend it, cut it, sheen it,

forge it, weld it. It’s a huge vocabulary.”

“If you ask the average person what they think about steel, I think the primary conception is it’s hard, rigid,” he said. “But when you form the metal when it’s hot, it’s plastic and fluid. Folded metal can be anything — [it can appear like] wind… dance, music, the fluidity of water. Everyone sees it differently.”

Paley’s Tamarac piece also “deals with the passage of time,” Paley said, because “firefighting is really related to life and lifesaving.”

Archer said Paley was chosen from among more than 150 applicants.

“It reaches out in an abstracted way,” she said. “Whether you are thinking of firefighters of the World Trade Center or the firefighters of Tamarac, you are stating the importance of the work they do. His concepts were very clear.”

ANNA COLLINS/FORUM PUBLISHING A 4,200-pound sculpture by internationally known sculptor Albert Paley was recently installed on Tamarac’s Fire Station 78.