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Monuments to time and place Applegate artists leave their mark on uncommon projects that resonate with the importance of common experience Their ceramic murals and courtyards first dazzle your eye and delight your aesthetic sense. Then they pull in your mind, making you wonder at the array of fish, birds and turtles mixed in with mosaic tiles, gears, pennies and wise sayings. The public art of Marvin and Lilli Ann Kellen Rosenberg adorn prestigious buildings, schools and squares all over the East Coast, where they lived most of their lives. And since moving to the Little Applegate Valley a dozen years ago, the Rosenbergs have erected colorful monuments all over the Rogue Valley and as far away as Eugene and Pendleton. Their pottery will be featured in the 26th annual Clayfolk Pottery Show and Sale this weekend at the Jackson County Exposition Park. In a workshop next to their hilltop home, the Rosenbergs, now in their late 70s, can be found reaming on rebar and wire mesh, gluing beads and glass insulators to giant fish, adding layers to a concrete chair and generally chatting it up and having a grand time packing several-hundred-pound packages of sculpture for shipping. At the center of the Rosenbergs' life work are children. As with projects fashioned at the Oregon State Police headquarters in Central Point and the Medford Skate Park, they often use them as a class for kids, inviting them to learn ceramics and design then serve as workers in the erection of it. Other projects end up as fanciful mini-playgrounds or interactive learning environments for children. Their concrete-mosaic play sculpture turtles engage kids at Emanuel Children's Hospital in Portland. Birds, butterflies and frog fountains are found at St. Christopher Children's Hospital in Philadelphia. At a school for the blind in Buffalo, N.Y., they created a mosaic of every imaginable surface - marble, cork, stone, rope, seashells - so children could learn with their hands. Aesthetically, the Rosenbergs' art may seem influenced by the bold colors and shapes of African, Caribbean, Southwestern or Civilian Conservation Corps art. But the longer you look at it, the more it looks like the work of awed, happy schoolchildren. "I knew I was an artist when I was 5," Lilli Ann said, pawing through hundreds of jars of mosaic pieces collected from Mexico, Italy and other world art centers. "I was so happy to start school and get my hands on all those art materials, that I think I forgot to study English and history at all. When they asked me what I was going to be when I grew up, I said I already am what I'm going to be - an artist." Lilli Ann and Marvin both started out as social workers but found they could reach and teach more kids through art than advocacy. Marvin earlier was a hospital community administrator and Lilli Ann tried union organizing and factory work. At the Medford Skate Park, the Rosenbergs involved kids in creating intaglio skateboarding images in a curving concrete wall by first carving the figures in Styrofoam and nailing them inside the form. At the state police project, kids from Crater High School and Jewett Elementary joined in the fun, each creating a ceramic piece that was cemented into a grand mural of Rogue Valley mountains, rivers and meadows. At the Park Street Subway Station in Philadelphia, a 170-foot-long Rosenberg mural depicts the site's role in history as the first subway station in America, built in 1897. It includes a mosaic of contemporary Philadelphians on the subway, with real horseshoes, gears and Indian head pennies from the time. "No one has ever stolen any of the found objects or damaged anything," said Marvin. "People just seem to recognize public art as something belonging to them." At Pemberton Square Courthouse in Boston, in one of their most loved and frequently visited courtyard mosaics, the Rosenbergs spelled out the entire Bill of Rights, with the language of each amendment cemented in brass letters within a huge roman numeral. Citizens are often photographed on the big V, with a caption: "I stand on the Fifth," said Marvin. With a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission, the Rosenbergs in 1993 put up 170 feet of ceramic mural at the visitors' center of Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton. Their staff? Twenty-five inmates with no art experience but long felony records. Now they're halfway into a two-year project making a Children's Courtyard for the new Eugene library. It features a 60-foot-long elephant, a hopscotch made of letters from many alphabets of the world, big alligators, fish, frogs and functional chairs made from scratch out of mesh, rebar and cement. The Rosenbergs have been pioneers in the field of ceramics and often get calls asking how they do things, as well as being featured in many ceramic art books, Marvin said. But, after Lilli Ann's 1968 book, "Children Make Murals and Sculpture," they found they don't have time to write their own book, recording their innovations. The Rosenbergs consider themselves at their creative peak and eschew any notion of retirement, no matter how old they get. They swim and do yoga and attribute much of their vitality to having blocked all television channels except PBS. "I don't consider myself old," said Lilli Ann. "I'm always surprised when someone gives me a seat. My energy is as good as it's ever been and I'm glad we're still competing in our field. It was my intention when I was a little girl to make the world a more beautiful and fun place and I hope I have." John Darling is an Ashland free-lance writer. 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