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"The Tree of Life as Described by Narcissus or The Wind”
The inspiration for this sculpture was found in a sense of homage to nature; not nature as in ‘outside,’ but nature as a whole - behavior, survival, growth, reproduction, evolution, and time. Through this perspective my homage was to all the planet’s species and time itself, nature.
The personification of the tree and egg was adapted through a human developmental narrative with nature, understood in symbolic form and meaning. Herein, the tree provides a symbol of strength, growth, flexibility, and wisdom, a regal symbol of health and life. In the same, the egg speaks of patience, nurturing, wealth, hope, and new generations. These we claim as human terms and attributes but these qualities are ones valuable, if not absolutely necessary, to all forms of life.
Through the desire to balance these two symbols, which I believe, epitomize profound introspectiveness and beauty, and in order to capture this existential sensibility of life itself, a symmetry was found in form. In other words, the tree idea became a Sugar Maple, which in open environments develops a very egg-like crown. Nature continued to design this work for me as the Maple sat atop the stone earth with the roots naturally below it while the egg sat comforted and safe down in the soil. Through this arrangement the entire sculpture captured the reciprocal symbolic meanings inherent in the egg and the tree. Furthermore, this created the quality of each symbol observing, if not pondering, forms of itself as through the reflection in a pool of water.
Ultimately, as stated above, these are human terms and attributes but ones valuable to all forms of life. Thus, it is by this symbolic and inherent exchange with nature, through our common identities and descriptions, where I believe the work is worth the most. The work is about nature, and discovering the relationship between nature’s attributes and our own is the healing quality of the work and the sum of all those meanings.
Bronze / IN. Limestone / Maple, 61" h 19" w 15" d. 2006. Commissioned by Jewish Hospital South Medical Center
and Coordinated with the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts.
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