The tell-tale swirl of the DNA double helix. A cyclist, mid-rotation. One barely perceptible, colossal figure on a silent stroll. Rich, cascading blues in alternating shades of light and dark, evoking water, with glimpses of fish flickering in its depths. Flashes of freshly harvested fruits and vegetables tumbling across an expanse of radiant, intersecting colors.
You’re more likely to notice the immense, custom stained glass window adorning Pennington Biomedical Research Center’s entrance if you happen to glance up while passing through the facility’s cavernous atrium. This is deliberate; the artistic marvel—a riot of color enlivening an otherwise gray building—was created for the people working inside the heart of Baton Rouge’s premiere research institution. Amid their comings and goings, Pennington Biomedical employees are invited to contemplate the connections between their work and their world, as their eyes are drawn heavenward by the light.
Local artist Stephen Wilson, whose stained glass windows and installations adorn scores of buildings across the South, was chosen to bring a luminous, unexpected strain of beauty into a space devoted to science and discovery.
“There’s no replacement for having beautiful art, stimulating people’s scientific creativity and helping them feel like they’re in an environment that’s very welcoming,” according to Dr. Steven Heymsfield, Professor of Metabolism & Body Composition at Pennington Biomedical, and former executive director of the institution. “There’s no replacement for it.”
How art imitates research
A product of Louisiana’s Percent for Art Program that utilizes state funds to infuse art into public spaces, Wilson’s Pennington Biomedical window sought to reflect the research institution’s mission in both subtle and striking ways. Wilson, who has been producing stained glass since the 1970s when he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in the discipline from Louisiana State University, has always been drawn to the potential for movement in an art form often considered static.
After speaking to researchers and professors, Wilson penciled the design over several weeks to capture Pennington Biomedical’s focus on health and the human body.
Beginning with the iconic Pennington “P,” Wilson sketched the DNA strands, a walker, a cyclist, various fish, and fruits and vegetables—the hallmarks of a healthy lifestyle. After colorizing the sketch, he began translating its images, piece by painstaking piece, from page to glass. The different elements of the window, in various, brilliant hues, crisscross and intersect in surprising, elegant ways.
“It’s like your brain has to deconvolute all those different pieces, which is truly amazing,” Dr. Heymsfield says. “I think one of the incredible challenges is to make it visually beautiful with colors—balance all the colors—and yet have all these different objects with it.”
Like the stained glass windows that adorn religious institutions across denominations, the Wilson window at Pennington Biomedical reflects the values and mission of the institution, delivering its message using the language of beauty—a mode of communication all humans can understand.
Beauty’s role in scientific research
Art experienced in unlikely settings can be transformative.
Creativity, Dr. Heymsfield believes, runs along multiple pathways—one of which is art, and another, science. Placing the two pathways side-by-side has the potential to spark something in the other.
Art brings a different, nuanced set of ideas and culture to a structure, no matter what the building’s purpose. Wilson’s window, in this case, brings literal and figurative illumination to an environment dedicated to the quest for knowledge.
“It really helped transform Pennington,” Dr. Heymsfield says. “It would look very different without that window.”
Pennington Biomedical employees have sometimes asked for poster versions of the window, which they place in prominent positions in their workspaces. It seems the resplendent shapes and patterns alone are enough to transfix, apart from the ethereal reflections cast by light streaming through the glass at different times of day. The window itself has become a landmark in both Baton Rouge, and within the Center.
Wilson, roughly a decade removed from the window’s installation, has pondered what his art could mean to the throngs of scientific researchers moving through Pennington Biomedical’s hallways.
“Does it help when they’re looking through the microscope?” Wilson wonders.
He doesn’t think so—at least not in a traditional sense. But does it inspire them?
“Hopefully,” he says.
