Great Gathering Place

Jacqueline Dreager

Jacqueline Dreager’s work for Wardlow Station, Great Gathering Place, takes its title from Puvunga, the Chumash name for this area. Known as a meeting place even before the first European settlers arrived, the area continues to be worthy of its earliest name. Historically, the neighborhood has been one where families settled to make homes and futures for themselves. Today, the community is still characterized by many single-family homes—places where the California dream is still being realized.

Set at the station entrance, the component Universal Sundial was inspired by the Jotham Bixby sundial at nearby Rancho Los Cerritos. A symbol for Dreager of the quiet and serenity of her own home and garden, the sundial is also a reminder of our place on the planet and in the solar system. For Dreager, as for many, home is the center of the universe. The sundial installation also includes a Wallace Stevens poem, “Planet on the Table.” Stools around the sundial were formed in cast-concrete from an old aircraft nosecone found in a local salvage yard, and are a reference to the area’s first flying field.

Continuing the cosmic motif, an etched glass disk has been installed in one of the station pylons with an image of Saturn, as seen from the Explorer spacecraft.

Jacqueline says that, “I believe that my work is some of the most abstract on the entire A Line (Blue). There are many associations that can be made in my work…planets, seed pods, capsules or just formal structures. It was a challenge to bridge the gap between studio and station.”