Public Art Installations
Valley of Light
Valley of Light is the largest public art installation in Santa Barbara County. It transforms the natural beauty of the landscape into a radiant experience of color, form, and light. Created by renowned California-based artist and design educator Nancy Jo Ward, the project invites viewers to contemplate the relationship between technology, environment, and human perception. The installation’s dynamic play of LED illumination shifts subtly throughout the evening, reflecting the rhythm of the valley itself—a living canvas that responds to the time of day and atmospheric changes.
Ward’s work for Valley of Light exemplifies her signature ability to merge contemporary lighting design with the poetic sensibility of fine art. Drawing on her deep background in media arts and her research into light as a sculptural medium, she creates site-responsive environments that blur the boundaries between the physical and the ethereal. The installation serves both as a beacon and a meditative space, engaging community members in a shared exploration of light’s emotional and transformative power.
The site is comprised of 7 sculptural “trees” that are 6’ in diameter and 14’ high. Ward designed the sculptures to be fabricated with powder-coated stainless steel that are activated at sunset by color-changing LED lights, and is powered by solar.
IllumiNation
to be installed spring 2026
IllumiNation is a dynamic illuminated art installation in the new Fine Arts building at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, California, created by California artist and educator Nancy Jo Ward as part of the Professor Emeritus Art Collection. Rooted in the idea that white light contains every color, the work invites visitors into a contemplative space where light becomes a universal language of color, movement, and meaning that can be experienced across cultures, ages, and backgrounds. The installation is designed to inspire connection and unity through color and form expressed through light, motion, and time, transforming a daily campus passage into a place of reflection and discovery.
IllumiNation is an 8’x8’ installation composed of 21 lights arranged in a grid, establishing a calm architectural rhythm that contrasts with the fluid, ever-changing color that animates each form. Each light is shaped into an abstract gesture derived from the main strokes of the Latin alphabet, suggesting a mysterious visual script that feels like mystical communication carried by light rather than written words. As the primary animation glides through carefully considered color transitions based in color theory, the grid becomes a luminous page where color, shape, and time compose a wordless conversation about perception, diversity, and shared humanity.
Creative programming brings these abstract letterforms to life, representing languages, cultures, and communities in conversation through shifting hues and subtle motion. A motion sensor responds to the presence of visitors, triggering a texting‑style animation that ripples through the grid like a message thread lighting up in real time. Within this illuminated “chat,” five core statements about art, humanity, and community—dream in color, love every day, care for our souls, make art for life, create to heal—are expressed through rhythmic flashes and flows of light, inviting viewers to imagine light itself as an act of care, empathy, and hope.
