Bed Series #1**

“My life flows out like water. My bones are scattered. My heart, like wax, is melted.”

Book of Psalms

The concept and work for this installation began in January, 2017. It led me to firing ranges in rural Alamance and Orange Counties, NC, to collect 5-gal. buckets of assorted spent bullet shells, some donated and some purchased. There are approximately 15,000 5-mm shells in the blanket.

The finger numbing, meticulous job of weaving and gluing these shells became a meditative act that extended to regular walks over a year’s time in the Hillsborough Town Cemetery near my home. There, I collected discarded family grave flowers that had been separated and blown far afield by the wind. Each flower or arrangement here represents someone’s specific grief, love and loss.

Materials

Discarded cemetery flowers, 9 mm spent bullet shells, rubberized mesh, gauze, basin, plastic, bed frame, inflatable mattress

2018

**Note about Bed Series The bed is my ultimate place of safety and retreat. On a broader level the bed is where some of the most important events of our lives occur: conception, birth, illness, death, sex, intimacy, sleep, dreams, rejuvenation, safety and trauma. We are perhaps most vulnerable when asleep in our beds and sadly for many that vulnerability is abused through sexual assault and other forms of betrayal. What happens in our beds, good and bad, can set the tone of our life. Hence, my fascination with the bed as metaphor.

Bed Series #2

Is Man’s cruelty and aggression to one another innate or learned? Is it environmental or pure instinct like that of wasps, hornets and tree galls? How do we reconcile human-inflicted suffering and the sacrificial love of a parent for their child? And how do we respond when unimaginable violence becomes real, whether here or in other parts of the world, where a split second is all that stands between a loved one’s intact life and the fall into stillness?

Materials

Fired clay, raw clay, rope, wood, steel, wire, photo on Mylar, target, bullet shells, rubber innertubes, colored liquid, bed, glass container, collected branches, chains, wooden bed frame

2018

Bed Series #3

“Ariadne’s Thread, Navigating the Labyrinth” is based on one of my favorite Greek myths, that of Ariadne’s Thread and the Minotaur. Additionally, in Logic there is an algorithm called Ariadne’s Thread for solving certain types of puzzles. It brings to mind the path, like a thread, that we navigate through our labyrinthine lives.

Paralleling this concept, the monofilament here is one continuous thread or path of stops, turns, obstacles, reversals and points of scrutiny that are inescapably connected.

As a metaphorical journey, one might ask who and where is the Minotaur, the monster that causes so many sacrificial deaths? Is the Minotaur an external beast or symbolic of something inside human DNA, like that on the enlarged wall photo of DNA gel electrophoresis samples?

Materials

Steel, Plexiglas, glass, bullet shells, enlarged photo of DNA gel electrophoresis samples, photo transparency, monofilament/fishing line, handmade ceramic components, bicycle inner tubes, chemistry glassware, children’s toys, heat-rotated lamp, funnels, standing panels of wood and stretched shower curtains, colored lights

2018

This sculptural installation was built around the metaphor of the mind—its imaginative meanderings, curiosity and memory. In a dimly lit space (60’ x 60’), five luminaries radiated out via beeswaxed electric cords like nerves and ganglia from a central wax head resting in a liquid-stained pool. Each lantern held a backlit construction to be discovered deep inside it, including water-filled latex forms.

Materials

Beeswax, electric cords, dyed water, Plexiglas, Mylar, lights, marbles, decalcified eggs, pomegranate, tubing, balloons, stone, glass bowls, vinegar

1999

There dangling in the trees behind the barn hung the limp folds of gray green silk and tangled cords abandoned to the twilight and shifting winds. Gone was the parachutist and in his place the suspended fall of a petit universe.

This scene inspired me to create an intimate, suspended, magical world of small, idiosyncratic constructions in the interior of the “fallen,” draped parachute and allude to an imaginative and mental suspension beyond physical reality.

Materials

Military parachutes; ruby Plexiglas; enlarged photo negative; steel; wood; tar paper; suspended 2-3” constructions of wax, latex balloons, clock parts, glass, wire, small found objects; bronze colored lights; 15” granite cube with engraved steel plaque

1999

This installation addressed the dilemma and limitations of binary systems. Surrounded by 0-1 sequences painted on the walls, the viewer was unable to see the interior images built into the steel projections that showed a similar male and female figure for each chamber simultaneously. The viewer was forced to move from one to the other but as with binary systems was unable to experience the images at the same time. Intuitive connections and overlaps were thereby discouraged, reflecting my concern about over-reliance on black and white categories.

Materials

Galvanized steel, angle iron, ruby Plexiglas, interior lights, photographs, steel disc and needle, latex paint

1998

This interactive sculptural installation addressed the perceptions of real and virtual experience by illusionistically expanding the interior of the 14’ steel shaft with highly reflective sheathing. The viewer entered via subway grating over a warmly-lit pool of water below. Looking upward, as if through the roof to the sky, crows could be seen flying. My intention was to create an intimate, safe, protective space that simultaneously allowed for a sense of soaring freedom.

Materials

Steel, water, colored light, photograph, steel subway grating, expanded metal, galvanized sheet steel, silhouettes

1998

Here I wished to create tension and threat by balancing and lowering heavy 200-pound stone and steel weights onto a raw egg, held intact by its inner membrane, without bursting it. (The shell had been eaten away by acid/vinegar.) The weights were perpetually raised and lowered by their counter balanced construction where water was pumped up into a sack, then drained out by gravity and pumped again. The marble block and steel disc squeezed the egg but rarely broke it.

Materials

200-pound blocks of marble and granite, steel, cable, steel discs and weights, bicycle wheels, chains, water, glass, pump, timer, decalcified raw egg, plastic sack, pan, tubing

1997

My concept behind “Gravity’s Redemption” stemmed from a love of learning, intellectual investigation and research, aspects I consider noble pillars of an academic university, since this was installed at UNC. Underlying these vital pursuits is an insatiable, human curiosity, without which education grows stale and restrictive. “Gravity’s Redemption” is my tribute to these qualities.

As the crouching woman in the oversized photo negative examines the ground and looks into the large, yellow chamber below her, she embodies for me an unquenchable search into the mysteries and workings of the universe represented by the laboratory-like specimen chamber. Within it perpetual cycles of condensation, vapor and water change state as they respond to the temperatures of the external environment.

Why Gravity’s Redemption? Gravity, as both a savior and destroyer, literally and metaphorically keeps us grounded yet can crush or limit our freedom. If one believes (as I do) in the redemptive human spirit and ideals of learning carried out by the university, the downward pull of gravity will be countered through education, questioning and untiring curiosity.

Materials

Steel, enlarged photo negative, Plexiglas, water

1996

In this installation I used water, condensation and photography to explore the relationship of the physical world to the spiritual. Here the focus was on the concept of levitation as the human desire to rise above and beyond the boundaries of physical constraint.

Materials

Enlarged photo negative, Plexiglas boxes, steel, wood, colored water, aquarium heaters, condensation, handmade ceramic elements, lights

1995

“Dry Pond” was a requiem for the environment and future generations. The greenhouse referred both literally to the greenhouse effect and metaphorically to the nurturing earth. The dry, white interior offered a possible vision of the future where the lushness of past gardens, woods and ponds were mere memories. The dry interior pool was covered with ultrasounds of a baby’s backbone, possible fossils of contemporary life. Finally, my idea with the exterior pipes connected the hot house to industry, even in SECCA’s protected garden.

Materials

Glass and steel greenhouse built by myself for the site, Plexiglas, heating pipes, wood, powdered lime, concrete, copy of The Brussels Boy garden sculpture, photo transparencies of fetal ultrasounds, photo transparency of lush pond and vegetation embedded in steel door

1992-1993

“Zygosity” (from zygote, the one-celled union of sperm and egg) dealt with biological destiny, love and reproduction in which the male and female figures assumed passive roles/gestures in the powerful face of natural biology (i.e., hormones, physiognomy, etc.) The mysterious environment within the incubation cube was literally “alive” as the vapor condensed, collected, rained and actually flexed the Plexiglas.

Materials

Enlarged photo negatives, 5’ x 5’ Plexiglas cube, plastic tubing, steel boxes, humidifiers

1993

As with several subsequent pieces, Cold Frame Generation resulted from the experience of my son’s birth and related to the powerful, generative force of motherhood. Moisture condensed on the glass and vegetation voluntarily grew inside the cold frame that housed the image of a mother and infant, fuel tank and steel pipes.

Materials

Steel, glass, propane gas tank from tobacco barn, plumbing pipes, wood, cement, enlarged photo negative

1992

This was inspired by the elaborate personal, social, industrial and technological systems in which I (and most people) by necessity operate. As often is the case, however, the heart of the matter lies elsewhere. By placing four wild bird’s eggs on a diminutive shelf within an industrial construction, I wished to draw attention to the precious, the diminutive and poetic in an often-harsher environment.

Materials

Ceramic tile, steel pipes, oil drum, abandoned wild bird’s eggs, tobacco barn burners and fuel tank, ceramic dish

1992

While on an artist residency at the Europees Keramisch Wekcentrum in Heusden, the Netherlands, this project marked the beginning of my fascination with water vapor, green houses, glass chambers and material changes in state as metaphors for the physical and spiritual condition.

It was inspired by Holland’s man-made landscape (dredged from the sea) and its prevalent use of greenhouses as artificial growth environments. I used steam and the ceramic objects and steel constructions I made to explore systems of protection, nourishment, warmth and enclosure.

Materials

Handmade ceramic elements, hand-glazed bricks, rolled steel, steel plumbing pipes, light, oil, heating device, steam

1990

This installation arose out of a fascination with Bernini’s 17th century sculpture, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, where he depicts her in an orgasmic swoon as an angel pierces her with a flaming arrow. It is based on her religious visionary writings from the 16th century when she was a nun, in which she describes her love of God in sexual-like imagery. This led me to think about the intensity of a physical and spiritual longing that cannot be consummated, so I rendered my interpretation as a voyeuristic view into a space behind the wall with, among other things, red-orange colored light, chest X-ray and an unattainable bell.

Materials

Steel subway grating, raw wool, colored lights, panty hose, broken hurricane shade, crystal bell, concrete and diamond metal lath, steel bar, chest X-ray

1990

Within Walls marked the beginning of my passion for sculptural installations that incorporated metaphorical spatial relationships, light, translucency, and unseen architectural functions, such as plumbing. Their parallel to the interior, unseen functions of the body were represented here as breath, lungs and the plumbing pipes that I exposed via a hole in the wall. In addition, the idea of the body as a space through which to move influenced many of my future installations.

Materials

Steel, panty hose, stone balls, chest X-rays, colored light, cinderblocks, Mylar, acrylic paint

1990