Underpass appreciation: There’s art under there

By Bob Welland, Kids Section Editor

Reston has more than 20 underpasses that allow pedestrians and cyclists to cross under busy roads like Reston Parkway, Colts Neck Road and North Shore Drive without worrying about traffic or waiting for lights. They connect our trails and footpaths so we can walk around our community safely and conveniently.

Plus there’s art under there. Under where? I just made you say “underwear.” These tunnels don’t have to be dim and drab. Five underpasses in Reston are sites of beautiful public art. Three are located in northern Reston along North Shore Drive near Lake Anne. Two others are near Hunters Woods Village Center in south Reston. Use the maps to plan a visit with your family!

The first art site was installed in 1965 by Gonzalo Fonseca at the North Shore Drive Underpass. It’s a set of concrete geometric shapes dispersed around the area. This creative work has the less creative name, “The Underpass.” Then in 1967, Baltimore-based potter, Olin Russum, made a textured ceramic mosaic on the walls of the Moorings Drive Underpass. Its bumpy chunks look like rocks, roots and branches.

Much more recently in 2010, Valerie Theberge decorated the Glade Drive Underpass with “Emerge,” a vast collection of colorful glass tile mosaics. Many are circles with tiles radiating out from the center, called mandelas. Other shapes are squished and stretched like amoebae. In 2018, Lake Anne Elementary School students painted “Community Circles” in the nearby Fairway Drive Underpass. These are also colorful mandelas painted along the walls.

Then in 2019, the Colts Neck Road Underpass was wrapped with an energetic mural called “Thoreau’s Ensemble” by Ben Volta. The overlapping colorful lines are a combination of more than 700 individual drawings by local students and seniors.

It takes a lot of work and planning by artists and community groups such as Public Art Reston to beautify an underpass in Reston. Let’s hope that in the future there will be many more underpasses with art. In the meantime, let’s celebrate the five sites we have. Don’t pass over these underpasses. Wander through the wander-passes. Wonder at the art in the wonder-passes. Because missing them would be a blunder-pass.