New Morton Arboretum Giant Sculptures Aim To Help Guests 'Pause And Connect' With Nature

LISLE, IL — Heather and Fez BeGaetz, who call themselves "partners in life and art" are set to bring their biggest exhibition yet to the Morton Arboretum when Vivid Creatures opens May 17. The exhibition will include five over-sized and vibrantly painted sculptures of local wildlife, in which “each animal has its own story," Heather told Patch.

The pair was tapped by the Morton Arboretum in late 2022. The Portland-based artists told Patch they wanted to visit the arboretum before they began developing their art pieces. Each piece is co-created by Fez and Heather, and constructed with the help of other Portland artists.

They told Patch that during this visit, Morton Arboretum Project Coordinator Amy Scott commented that she was "seeing the cranes do things they hadn’t been seen doing."

“We knew immediately we wanted to do a crane," Heather said.

During another visit, Heather was in a meeting when a squirrel approached Fez and their 4-year-old daughter, Calliope.

"She got to have this experience with the squirrel that was engaging with us," Fez said.

That connection inspired the couple to create a sculpture of a fox squirrel for Vivid Creatures. The squirrel sculpture will be located near the spot where Fez and Calliope had that memorable squirrel encounter.

In total, Vivid Creatures will include five gigantic sculptures, with the largest one standing 29 feet tall. Fez said the exhibition delves into each creature's relationship with its environment and what it's like to be a human encountering each animal.

For this reason, the sculptures are painted in vivid hues and made from elements of their natural environment.

Each sculpture has a name, too, and shares an important, poetic message about how they are help shape the ecosystem that sustains them.

The fox squirrel is named Scamp, whose message is, “I am the sculptor of the forest.”

Heather said they learned in their research that squirrels store some 3,000 nuts every season. Although squirrels have impressive memories, they forget where they stashed about 10 percent of their nuts, Heather explained.

From these, trees ultimately grow.

A snail, "as big as a billboard," Heather said, stands atop a berm overlooking I-88 and is named Spectra. Since snails eat leaves, Spectra's message is, "Slow down. Food will fall from the sky."

There's also an over-sized deer named Generosity, a crane named Cadence and a dragonfly named Nimbly.

Incorporated in the sculptures are other elements of their environment with which they have a relationship. The dragonfly sculpture includes a depiction of a frog, since they are reciprocal predators, Heather said. She explained that frogs eat dragonflies and dragonflies eat tadpoles.

Heather said one goal of Vivid Creatures is to "encourage fellow humans to pause and connect again to these creatures that are very common that we share the world with.”

Universal interconnectedness, after all, played a large part in how Fez and Heather met. Fez had been an artist creating large sculptures when he was on a visit to Portland and decided to take part in a scavenger hunt.

During the scavenger hunt, Fez solved a riddle that took him to a Sunday morning dance party, where he was tasked with finding a "fiery red-haired goddess" named Heather.

Fez said he entered the party and saw Heather "at the threshold of the ballroom" just as he "crested the top of the stairs."

He told Patch he knew immediately that "it was her," adding that he felt "instant attraction."

“That type of spark of creativity and discovery has continued in our relationship in art and in life and in our collaborations," Fez said.

When she met Fez, Heather was a theater artist who made masks. Her art included creating immersive experiences like the dance party where she met Fez.

Fez said she was an expert at "creating an environment and a story for people to witness and be taken upon"

Heather told Patch she found her "love of sculpting" after meeting Fez.

Sculpting, storytelling, expressions and immersion are all evidenced in the experience of Vivid Creatures.

Patch spoke to Heather and Fez about a month before the opening date of Vivid Creatures. They said five semi trucks would be en route to Lisle carrying the large squirrel, crane, snail, dragonfly and deer sculptures.

The couple plans to be there for the installation with Calliope in tow.

“She’s a little artist, and she really wants to help," Fez said, adding that the 4-year-old would help in the construction by performing little tasks like "spraying cement to keep it wet."

Calliope would also provide encouragement, saying," Wow. Good job, Daddy" and "Wow, Mama, that’s really beautiful.”

"She's very excited to come to Chicago for the installation," he said.

For Calliope, though, "It’s just her normal world that there’s these giant colorful creatures," Fez said.

Both he and Heather hope the giant sculptures of Vivid Creatures will remind visitors of the colorful, beautiful creatures that are part of their world, too. Sometimes soaring overhead, sometimes bounding through the forest, sometimes scampering or slinking right underfoot.

Heather said, "This series very much informed by the sense that we are all inter-related, and we’re all made by our world as we make our world."

Vivid Creatures is set to run through Spring of 2027.