Off the Clock:

Machine and Nature Merge in SOM Professor's Sculptures

By Michelle Nery

Mark Pruett, an assistant professor in the School of Management (SOM), teaches courses on strategic management and organizational theory. But at the Academy of Management's conference this summer, he revealed a side of himself that most of his colleagues had never seen when he displayed one of his "hydro-motive" fountains.

The massive six-foot, three hundred-gallon fountain composed of old car steering wheels and hood ornaments was designed to illustrate one of the meeting's themes--the relationship between corporate innovation and government regulation. Five thousand attendees from business schools around the world had the chance to view Pruett's art.

Pruett's kinetic water sculptures are made of antique car parts and copper plumbing. "I've fooled around with cars since I was 13 or 14, and my parents exposed me to the arts in our travels," says Pruett. He came up with the idea for the sculptures "in one of those moments when you link ideas that don't usually go together, I thought that some old car parts would look beautiful with water running over them. I stayed up all night, cobbled a couple of fountains together on stone slabs, switched on the pumps, and immediately knew that I'd found an amazing creative outlet," Pruett says.

Through this outlet, Pruett explores the relationship between nature and machine. The water sculptures are "celebrations of the machine's origins in nature and of nature's enduring influence on the machine," he says. The water running through and over his creations represents nature as "the liquid of life," while machines, like nature, "hum, whir, and roar with energy."

"It meshes in interesting ways with my academic career," Pruett says. "I occasionally discuss my art in my management classes as an example for certain concepts and issues. It helps to open the students' eyes and minds, which I believe is one of the most basic purposes of a college education."

To find inspiration for his artwork, Pruett ventures out to Leon's, a hundred-acre salvage yard in Culpeper. "I seek interesting shapes, sensuous ones that will interact with water," says Pruett. Besides using the parts in his sculpture, Pruett also uses them to restore old cars. His own wheels include a 1969 Cadillac Fleetwood and 1966 and 1970 Oldsmobile Toronados.

Pruett's fountains have been displayed at the Arlington Ridge Gallery in Arlington, Va., and at Signal 66 in Washington, D.C. At the opening of the Arlington exhibit, 50 visitors came to see his creations, which were installed in a large room behind a heavy door. With over 2,000 gallons of water per hour moving through the various steel sculptures, the effect was immediate--from light raindrops tinkling on car hoods to roaring currents of water rushing through grilles. "You don't just see these sculptures move, you hear them. That's how I coined the name 'hydro- motive,'" Pruett says. "It's all about mixing water, sound, light, and steel."

Seven of Pruett's larger fountains, some eight feet high, will be displayed in the heart of Washington, D.C.'s Seventh Street art gallery district from Sept. 20-30 in conjunction with the annual Art-on-Foot festival. The exhibit, in the glass front of HNTB, an architecture firm at 421 Seventh Street, N.W., is open to the public during business hours, and HNTB actively encourages visitors to come inside for a closer look.

"I love art as a creative outlet. For me, personal and professional interests have joined in a synergy I never would have expected," says Pruett.

For more information, visit Pruett's web site at www.hydro-motive.com.