Description

“PDG is a multi-generational, family-owned and operated, Experiential Design + Build Studio. Founded in Eugene, OR, you’ll find examples of our donor recognition installations in hospitals, universities, museums, and outdoor spaces across the country” as stated on PDG’s website www.pdgdesign.net.

A collaboration, between PDG and Kim Emerson, always begins with the client’s need to recognize their generous donors who will have their names represented in an artful, sophisticated, and permanent display. PDG designs, engineers, fabricates and installs the beautifully hand-crafted wall displays out of fine woods, metal, and silkscreened glass. 

The ABHOW Foundation was a very special client who commissioned this collaborating team incorporating mosaic art panels in a format and style that is elegant, friendly, soothing, positive, timeless, colorful, textured for the curious tactile senior, and that also tells the story about the community it represents. 

Featured here are just four of several completed projects:

1. Installed 2009, these two large mosaic panels incorporated into a larger wall display, entitled “Wildflowers of the Sonoran Desert”, were designed and built for The Terraces of Phoenix, in Arizona. The dimensions of both mosaic panels are 5’ 0” wide x 5’ 0” high. The selected theme for the mosaics celebrates the tiny flowers discovered at Springtime in the surrounding dessert, and enlarged to delightful mega proportions.

2. The wildflower theme was so successful that the ABHOW Foundation requested the same for the community of Valle Verde located in Santa Barbara, CA. In 2010, this collaboration produced two mosaic panels for the newly built donor recognition wall. There is a large panel (72” wide x 42” high), and a smaller panel (42” wide by 14” high). 

3. Continuing to draw upon the calming theme of nature and the surrounding area of beautiful Los Gatos, CA, for this donor recognition project, the ABHOW Foundation commissioned for The Terraces of Los Gatos, a total of five mosaic panels to depict the following: a Coastal Redwood tree (largest 23” wide x 69” high), a Liquidamber, a Flowering Pear, and a Flowering Plum (medium 23” wide x 12” high each), and the landscape Hills of Los Gatos (smallest 23” wide x 8” high).

4. The fourth featured project, in 2016, was for the The Terraces of Los Altos, CA. This one happens to be the favorite of the artist for its simplicity, soft colors, and use of materials. This area of Los Altos was once surrounded by Apricot tree orchards, and the budding blossoms of the Apricot in Springtime was the selected theme. This one panel (24” wide x 48” high), depicts the budding plant with blue sky all around. The artist utilized large chunks of smalti glass “pizze”, made in Venice, Italy, which was the perfect material to represent the soft white petals, and with smaller tesserae for the delicate center details of the freshly open flowers.

For each project, and to make absolutely sure that the mosaic panels fit perfectly into the newly built donor recognition ensembles, PDG first constructs the panels and ships them blank to the artist’s studio. Then and there, Kim Emerson adheres the mosaics to the pre-fabricated panels. When she is finished, the mosaic’d panels are shipped to the site, and ultimately PDG snaps them flawlessly into the ready wall display.

A very special THANK YOU goes to the entire team at Presentation Design Group (PDG) for their superb designs, endless creativity and masterful engineering; and also for their professional business practices, sensitivity to the clients’ foundational needs, and for simply being the most wonderful people in the world!