Buster Simpson
Exchanger Fountain
Anaheim
Harbor Place at Lemon Street, Ahaheim
Orange County Thomas Guide page 768, grid J5

Seattle-based artist Buster Simpson synthesized Anaheim history and his own interest in ecology in 1993 to create "Exchanger Fountain," a drinking fountain that delights and refreshes while it teaches.

A chrome-plated brass basin mimics the shape of the farm discs used to till the soil in the once-predominantly-agrarian economy. The fountain's dish is inscribed with the text: "Santa Ana your water nurtures and your hot winds cool. The water kissing your lips is an offering."

The dish is mounted on a leaning tufa stone column set into a tree pit. The fountain's used or "gray" water nurtures an adjacent willow tree and, through evaporation, cools the drinking fountain. The tree alludes to the city's first fence--a line of willows planted in 1856 to keep free roaming cattle from wandering into what was the first planned community in California.

The fountain and tree are surrounded by an ovular redwood and steel fence, which embraces the fountain's precarious angle while accommodating wheelchairs.

"I trust people are conscious of the offering they make: Cooling the next person's drink and nurturing the willow," Simpson said of the artwork. "Reflected in the fountain is the water 'kissing your lips' and the interdependence of us all."