Sculpture

Lately, I've been converting old slides to digital files and came to realize I've done a fair bit of sculpture including a couple of commissions--one for our local library and another that is installed in an estuary park in a town nearby. (I keep telling myself I HAVE to get back there and photograph it.) That's for a later time.

The library commission started with a quotation:

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." Francis Bacon, 1561-1626
















Making the piece was a great challenge. After I found the quotation, it was a matter of a lot of thinking-time to figure out how to show the idea in a visual way. Now, librarians might cringe at the thought of books floating around in soup, but the unspoken idea of alphabet soup was just too good to pass up.

The book tidbits are like short stories on a plate--a little sweet bite to be savored and enjoyed. I thought long and hard about adding "Curiosity" to the handle of the spoon. And in the end, decided it was a good thing to do. Intellectual curiosity is a valuable quality to have and the tool to learning new things. I made the base from a clay that fires black.

The photo was taken before the piece was mounted on an additional, larger birch wood base. I wrote the quote in script lightly in green at the top and bottom of the wooden base. The work rests quietly in a conference room in an acrylic case.