Art and Fossils

Kaiser Permanente's Foothill Ranch Medical Office Building rests at the base of the Santa Ana Mountains in Orange County, fourteen miles from the Pacific Ocean. When construction paused because the archeologist found ancient fossils of a baleen whale, a fish resembling a salmon, and the rare pacific loon, we worked with Kaiser Permanente, LSA, and the county to create an art program built around these marine fossils.

In a large case near reception the fossils are on display, while nearby a mixed media art installation shares pertinent educational and detailed information about the fossils, confirmation that at one time the building site was the ocean floor, artist sketches of the fossils, the tools, and other interesting factoids. In addition, five 6'-8' tall ceramic totems emerge through stone at the opposite end of the lobby, while contrasting original works in a nearby waiting room point the viewer towards the mountains or the sea.