| Home
|
Outdoor Sculpture In 2000, I was invited to create a piece for the Unison Sculpture Garden in New Paltz, NY. This was an opportunity to enter new artistic territory in terms of scale and materials. Having recently moved near the Rondout Creek I was intrigued by the riverwood that washed up along the shore and began to collect it. Using this wood I built a pair of ladders which became "frames" for two smaller porcelain ladders which were supported on two of the rungs. Site specific, these ladders were placed against a tree on the edge of the woods, bordering an open meadow.
In addition to the Unison Invitational, my ladders were shown in Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania at an exhibition called "Art in the Garden" in 2002. This year another grouping of rope ladders will be included in the Kingston Sculpture Biennial curated by Judy Pfaff. The challenge of working on a larger scale with new materials in response to an outdoor environment continues to create an opportunity for stretching artistically.
|
Since this initial project, I've continued to participate
in the Annual Unison Invitational Sculpture Exhibition at the same site with an
ongoing series of riverwood and porcelain sculptures . "Generational
Ladders" in 2001 was inspired by several sources including African Granary
ladders and the shapes of fish skeletons. Like the African granary ladders which
are carved from one log these ladders used a single riverwood pole for the
vertical support. The porcelain rungs referred to the graceful shapes of fish
skeletons . The following year the same riverwood was "recycled" into
a completely different concept. Entitled "New Growth", porcelain
tendrils appeared to grow from the base of the riverwood poles. This year,
returning to the theme of ladders, the installation at Unison is a rope ladder
with porcelain rungs suspended from one of the riverwood poles attached to the
same tree.