"Seijaku"

As the collection grew, we spent a lot of time tracking down Oregon-based artists whose work moved us. One name kept surfacing: Julian Voss-Andreae. His sculptures, built from thin sheets of stainless steel, are unmistakable once you've seen one.

I drove to Portland to visit his studio a few years back, and the work was even better in person. We later went to Palm Springs just to see one of his pieces in place. Eventually we invited Julian and his wife out to the property. It matters to us that the artists who make work for this site feel a real connection to it, so if possible we want them to walk it in person before they design for it. From there we started on a commission built around a sense of place, something that would be in conversation with the land around it.

Julian understood the spirit of it immediately, and what he came back with went past anything we'd imagined. As his design took shape, we knew the siting had to match it. We built a six-foot pedestal to lift and frame the piece. More than two tons of concrete in all.

Julian left the naming to us. Words kept falling short. We couldn't find anything in English that captured what it feels like to stand in front of it, so we asked a friend from Japan whether Japanese might get closer.

Seijaku (静寂) translates roughly to "silence" or "stillness," but it carries more than that in Japanese culture. A kind of serenity where everything feels balanced and alive in its quiet. The stillness of a temple, a forest, a moment of meditation.

Good things come to those who wait. Years after that first studio visit, Seijaku was sited on the property in September 2025.