The art for Thunder Mountain High School was being planned before the walls went up. The artists were asked to work together and with the architects to make art that was integrated with the building. Michael Anderson collaborated with the Architect, Paul Volkers, on the riverine floor and sidewalk through the entry of the school to the parking lot. His inset floor tile river bars accentuated the colored concrete and added an artifact history lesson. His tile was the first three and one half feet of Wayne Price’s Auntie Totem Pole, transitioning from the river to the totem in a metamorphosis of river fauna.

Islands and Oceans Visitor Center is about understanding the maritime environment. The art for this building was conceived as the building went up. The walls and columns were festooned with touchable ceramic sealife and the washed concrete floor used special artist created porcelain aggregates to recreate the feel of a beach. The Flounder and their cloud trails in the floor are directional arrows and the round central column is tiled to be a dock piling.  Years later the artist worked with exhibits specialists to enable the central column to become a tidal change display. 

Michael Anderson used colorful starfish and swimming fish to create a lively backsplash, in this large midwest kitchen.

The Boise Watershed’s entry garden river walk shares the aquatic life in the Boise River. It starts as a cold water river high in the mountains, warms as it flows through the Boise valley and is a warm river where it enters the snake. Anderson’s art shows this transition as cutbank benches and stair sidewalls on the river walk as it descends through the garden. The shade structure contains Heron and Cormorant nests, in various stages of use, giving viewers a close up of the rookerys found on the Boise River Greenbelt trail.