Michele Oka Doner: A Walk on the Beach

Starting in 1991 and continuing through 2010, artist Michele Oka Doner has paved the concourses of Miami International Airport with thousands of sculptural bronze elements, from sea plants and animals through native Florida plant life to astronomical objects. Extending over more than two miles, Doner's fantastical installations are a first welcome and a last farewell to airport passengers. This slipcased 24-panel foldout showcases Doner's three major public works in a charming keepsake volume.

A Walk on the Beach consists of saltwater creatures and plant life - all indigenous to South Florida -cast in bronze and embedded in black terrazzo overlaid with mother-of-pearl. From Seashore to Tropic Garden draws on botanical imagery, including flowers and palm fronds, against white terrazzo. The two meet in Galaxy, a dynamic spiraling interchange of white and black. Its powerful material quality engages the imagination and demonstrates the essential purpose of public art.

Artist Michele Oka Doner derives her formal vocabulary from a lifelong study of the natural world. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre, and many more. She is the author of Miami: Blueprint of an Eden, and she has published three books focusing on her work.

Beth Dunlop is architecture critic for the Miami Herald and editor of Modern Magazine. She is the author of numerous books on Florida's architecture and design.