1 Paradigm Shift – A Bridge
Jack Archibald designed this window entitled “Paradigm Shift” in tandem with its counter part “Escher’s Elevator” on the west side of this building. Together they serve as an artistic connection between the university’s original Education Building, standing behind you, now known now as “Old Main” and this new building.
In describing this piece, the artist wrote,
“ “Paradigm Shift’s” arch is a metaphorical as well as literal ‘bridge’ between the 19th century Normal School’s entrance of arched stone and radiating wood fanned transom to the abstraction of “Escher’s Elevator” and its 21st century architecture. Where “Paradigm Shift” is an elegantly formal symmetrical construction whose interior begins the process of fragmentation, “Escher’s Elevator” is a wholly modern unraveling of traditional perspectives.”
2 Paradigm Shift – Animated Glass
Since the late 1970s, Jack Archibald has created more than sixty stained-glass installations which are exhibited in public buildings across the country. He has received commissions to create windows for city halls, public libraries, transportation centers, the Washington State Patrol headquarters, public schools, elevator towers, courthouses, historical societies, airports, train stations,community centers, and yes… universities.
He said of his work, “As a stained glass artist, I work with light. Glass is uniquely interactive with light, its transitions, its intensities, its colors. Throughout the day, a window constantly undergoes transformation. The changing light animates the glass.”
3 Paradigm Shift – Artist: Jack Archibald
Archibald received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1972 and in 1981, he established a private art studio called “Revisionary Glassworks” on an island in Washington’s Puget Sound. His style incorporates science-fiction [and] mythology and blends curvy, anthropomorphic figures balanced with rigid, geometric shapes.