Original Artwork by Cliff Garten, Pocket Park, 2002
Artist Cliff Garten designed an elegant urban oasis in the form of a "pocket park", tucked between the building located at 1430 N Street and the historic Dean Apartments, which serves as a welcome community amenity providing seating and shade in a metaphorical garden.
The pocket park provides a way of integrating nature, sculptural features, water, text, seating, and hardscape into a story and serves to mediate between the residential scale of the neighborhood and the larger government buildings of the East End Complex. The park moves from the street into the realm of civic government in a humane fashion allowing the residential life of the neighborhood to gracefully coexist in this environment. The civic and residential qualities of the surroundings are thus brought together through a sense of the shared heritage of California's landscape. An oak tree and native plants allude to the pristine landscape of California's past, while the incised qutations from John C. Fremont and from a Maidu song remind us of what the Sacramento valley must have been before it was developed. The form of the bronze fountain alludes to an acorn, the most important diet staple of the indigenous peoples of the valley, as well as a form often used by them in baskets, vessels, and implements. Plantings of low maintenance native plant species and curvilinear patterns in the paving and planting enhance the contemplative and restful design.
