The walls of the Foothills Learning Center lobby are a beautiful panoramic view of the foothills painted by local artist Ward Hooper. The mural reflects many aspects of the foothills including wildlife, native plants, firefighting, and the relationship of the foothills to the city.
The master landscape plan for the Center includes sculpture in nodes in the four cardinal directions. The first sculpture was installed in the East Node in October 2008 and represents the air element. It was designed and created by Mark Baltes, a Boise artist and sign-maker by trade. His first public art piece was "Penny Post Card", an enamel on steel mural on the Idaho Street side of Boise City Hall.
Baltes' foothills piece, "Aero Agoceris" is a large-scale kinetic sculpture shaped like a native mountain dandelion. The whimsical steel and aluminum sculpture towers 15 feet above the Foothills Learning Center parking lot - a weather vane fabricated to resemble a dandelion seed head in the act of dispersal. Mountain Dandelions are a native species with a rich history in folklore and mythology.
Not only does the sculpture represent the wind, it also reacts to it. The whole top turns on a sophisticated ball-bearing system as the wind blows. And if you look on the roof of the Learning Center, the sculpture continues there with seed heads wired to the roof looking like they just blew in.
The South Node sculpture will be incorporated into the new native plant garden which is currently under construction. The sculpture will reflect the Fire element. As funding becomes available, nodes will be created to the north and west as well, representing the Earth and Water elements.