Cosmography Dedicated November 1
### Open House is also a chance to meet the center's new executive director, Serena Dressel
LINCOLN CITY – For the past 18 months, ever since the completion of the main phase of the Plaza redevelopment project, there’s been a point of curiosity at the west entrance of the Lincoln City Cultural Center. It was a perfect but empty-looking circle, 20 feet in diameter, recessed in the sidewalk. It has pride of place, surrounded by a curvilinear seat wall and custom made benches, but something was definitely missing. As they walked through or around this circle of gravel, many pedestrians asked – what is this supposed to be?
Now the answer has arrived, with the installation of “The Lincoln City Cosmography,” an original sidewalk LithoMosaic depicting flora, fauna and elements of life on the central Oregon Coast, created by Wick Alexander and Robin Brailsford. The public is invited to a dedication ceremony for the work, set for 2:30 pm on Saturday, Nov. 1, at the west doors of the Cultural Center.
Mayor Susan Wahlke, Sen. Dick Anderson and Rep. David Gomberg will join Cultural Center board and staff to cut the ribbon for this long-awaited capstone of the Cultural Plaza project.
The dedication is part of a larger Open House event, lasting from 2 to 4 pm, that will provide the public with its first chance to meet the Cultural Center’s new director, Serena Dressel. Everyone is invited to enjoy live music, refreshments and a chance to enjoy art, culture and community.
**About the art**
The Lincoln City Cosmography is a LithoMosaic, which is a form of tile art that is structurally embedded into concrete using a durable process patented by Robin Brailsofrd. It features a mandala design with 64 circles depicting flora, fauna and elements of life on the central Oregon Coast. It was created by Robin Brailsford and Wick Alexander, of Robin Brailsford Public Art, using ideas generated by Lincoln City residents in online workshops and public input sessions in 2020.
A public art and accessibility project in the works for more than five years, the Cosmography is the capstone of the $3.5 million Cultural Plaza project. It became a reality in 2025 with funding from the Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation, the Oregon Cultural Trust, Explore Lincoln City and Phyllis Nina Harper, along with contributions from the Oneatta Fund and a generous anonymous donor, both through the Oregon Community Foundation.
T.B. Penick & Sons, Inc., from San Diego delivered the mosaic and conducted the installation in the first week of August. RK Construction provided onsite assistance and permitting, with help from Cultural Plaza Project Manager Alan Holzapfel. The Cosmography was envisioned and planned within the Cultural Plaza design by Jessel Champoux of Shapiro Didway Landscape Architects.
Although conception, creation, planning and fundraising for the Cosmography took nearly five years, the installation of the piece was fast – it was complete in less than three days. However, Brailsford’s patented LithoMosaic monolithic pour method ensures that this piece will retain its color and structure for decades. After curing, it is not only walkable and handicapped accessible, but also driveable, making it easy for vendors and artisans to continue their work on the Cultural Plaza every summer.
**Artists’ Statement**
The idea for this public art installation began in 2019, when Cultural Center board and staff began work with the landscape architects at Shapiro Didway. They asked the designers to create a pedestrian-friendly and art-filled space, front and back, that would not sacrifice the Center’s long-term relationship with the Farmers Market and its vendors.
The team at Shapiro Didway discovered the work of Robin Brailsford, whose vivid and engaging outdoor public art installations can be found in transit stations, parks and public buildings across the Southwest. Brailsford invented the process of LithoMosaic, which embeds color body porcelain tiles into concrete in a way that is not only incredibly durable, but retains its beauty over time.
Brailsford and her design partner, Wick Alexander, were engaged to provide an art installation for the Cultural Plaza project in 2020. The artists were asked to design for this space, at the west entrance of the Cultural Center, in an area that also includes the sleeve for the Center’s annual Christmas tree. To find their direction, Wick and Alexander conducted a series of online public engagement workshops, funded by a technical assistance grant from the Oregon Cultural Trust.
“From these community workshops organized by the Cultural Center, we learned of the significance and timelessness of Lincoln County’s natural beauty, of the land, tideland, ocean and sky,” Brailsford wrote of the project, in 2022. “Our mandate was to express a unique and ‘sense of place and falling in love’ with this bountiful beauty.”
Wick and Alexander began thinking about the central location, the natural beauty, the tides, and the community’s connection to the tides and the moon, and they found themselves drawn to the idea of a cosmography: the depiction of information not in grids or right angles, but in circles and arcs. The first inspiration was an Inuit map of the heavens, but they found many more, through many cultures around the world.
“Our design for the circular Plaza LithoMosaic takes inspiration from many sources: mandalas, alchemical diagrams, circles of knowledge and the medicine wheel,” Brailsford wrote in 2022. “It is a 20-foot-wide cosmography composed of 64 24-inch medallions. At winter solstice, a stately and iconic pine will be set in its center. In its own way, this living vertical element will work into a solar clock.”
“(Alexander von Humboldt) tells us that Cosmography is ‘the general science that deals with the features of the universe. The branches of cosmography include astronomy, geography and geology,’ and so by extension, chemistry, physics and biology.”
Alexander and Brailsford submitted their preliminary design to the Cultural Center in 2021. The public was invited to add their own ideas for plants, animals and elemental forces at the public input station open at the Center, as well as through take home kits, or online methods. The artists incorporated these local ideas, completing the design work in the winter of 2023.
“Our cosmography highlights the four seasons and directions with four colors in the background: red, black, white and yellow. Over this is imposed a series of graduated rings, from the sky to the center: to ocean, estuary, beach and land,” wrote Alexander. “As Lincoln City is called The String of Pearls for the small hamlets along the highway, each ring has pearls or mandalas representing the flora and fauna you might see there, in that season, based on where they fall in the circle.”
Unfortunately, Brailsford will not get to see the installation of the Lincoln City Cosmography, the northernmost installation of her outdoor LithoMosaic projects. She suffered from a sudden onset of heart failure in late 2024 and died of a related stroke in March of this year. Her partner, Wick Alexander, saw the project through its final stage.
**Installation Details**
The Lincoln City Cosmography began its life on the floor of the studio shared by Robin Brailsford and Wick Alexander, near the U.S./Mexico border, in Dulzura, Calif. When the artists considered their work complete, they glued the tiles to a plastic sheet covered by heavy-duty mesh – in reverse. The mosaic was then cut into quadrants and rolled up for storage, where it rested until Aug. 1, 2025, when it was loaded onto a truck and transported north by the artists’ designated contractor, T.B. Penick & Sons, Inc. of San Diego.
Upon arrival, the crew of five specialists from T.B. Penick & Sons joined forces with a local contractor, RK Construction, to complete the three-day installation of the mosaic at the Cultural Center site.
On Aug. 6, staff and bystanders watched as the quadrants were rolled out, turned over and arranged in preparation for the Litho-Mosaic installation process. Once the concrete was pumped in and smoothed by hand, the pieces were laid down. The water in the concrete mix released the glue on the mesh, allowing the crew members to remove the backing and simultaneously smooth and grout the tiles into place.
The installation in Lincoln City was done in two halves, on Aug. 6 and 7, with a special solution and cleanup process completed on Friday, Aug. 8.
The LithoMosaic process, a special combination of extra-durable materials and a monolithoic pour, was invented and patented by Robin Brailsford and has been used in transit malls, parks and other hardscapes across the Southwest.
It connects the Poetry Path, a 10-foot wide walkway that winds 430 feet through the Cultural Plaza, around the Cultural Center. Adorned with the original poem, “Why They Came,” the path has a river-like ribbon of aggregate and connects the Plaza’s gathering spaces, public art installations and program spaces, allowing walkers, wheelchairs and strollers safe and easy access to outdoor events like markets, fairs and concerts.
For more information, call the Cultural Center office at 541-994-9994.
