The Thought

bronze 16'x 6'x 6'

The Thought was built in my carriage house studio in the District of Columbia. It is sixteen feet in height, so I had to attach the head to the arm outside, in the yard of the studio. It is made of copper pipe and bronze sheet. I used three-inch soft copper pipe for the exposed areas because I could bend it into the curves I needed. The problem I had to tackle, and finally figured out, was how to weld bronze to copper. Copper dissipates the heat so rapidly that it is hard to get a weld.

The solution was to preheat the copper with a torch in one hand and then weld it with a mig welder with the other hand. This work was built from my own desire to see that particular image large. I had previously built a model and kept envisioning it as a monumental piece. I wanted to show how we appear when we are lost in thought; our eyes lose focus and we block out sound. To achieve that effect, I simply left the ears out. To me, that suggested the invisibility of thought.

Mind as Body

stainless steel 16'x 10'x 5'

This sculpture is sixteen-feet in height and is constructed of stainless steel. It was my first attempt at building a figure of that height. I had previously built work at that monumental size, but they were commissions and took the form of tree-like sculptures which I created to meet the demands of the sites and budgets for which they were intended.

The human figure requires a greater amount of ingenuity and skill as its anatomical complexity may take years of study. It is also necessary, when rendering the figure, for an artist to create something fresh if one is to advance our collective knowledge of the world of sculpture. Mind as Body is my image, which represents the necessary connection between our brains and the health of our bodies. This sculpture is actually only half a figure so that one gets to see the inside as well as the outside. As one moves around the sculpture, the views become more abstract and so the viewer must readjust his mind from the familiar to the unfamiliar.

Father Time

stainless steel and bronze 6'x 9'x 3'

In the early seventies I was working in plastics and had gotten a certain amount of recognition in Los Angeles making life-sized, satirical figures. I made this one work of a bearded Father Time riding a ten-speed bike while looking back, disturbed at how fast he was going. The sculpture was a great success so when I eventually got into metal I had the vision of making it more realistic and more powerful by not making it satirical. I also added the ripped clothing to create the feeling of high speed.

This work became one of the most complex sculptures I have sculpted as I have generally tended to increasingly eliminate parts of the figure in my work and simplify the form, but not as much with this one. It took me about three months to complete and is slightly larger than life-size. I actually started working on this piece at my studio in Washington, but finished it in Italy at the same time I was building Madre della Pace. I had completed the motorcycle, but not the figure, which I completed in the studio in Tuscany. It was also one of the pieces I showed at the Florence Biennale. Father Time is about nine feet long and six feet in height. At one show in Stamford, Connecticut it was placed in the center strip of the town and really looked like it was speeding down the road.

Madre della Pace

stainless steel 16'x 5'x 10'

This sixteen-foot sculpture is made of stainless steel and was built in a rented space in a steel fabrication factory near Florence, Italy. It was created for my participation in the 2003 Florence Biennale, and subsequently won the Lorenzo dei Medici gold medal. I had only two months to build this work, so my assistant, one Italian welder, and I were under extreme pressure to finish in time for the opening of the Biennale. This was complicated by the fact that I had made a rough macquette rather that a complete model, therefore had not foreseen some of the many problems we encountered as we built the piece. The word macquette is French and means a small work of the general idea of the sculpture.

Unfortunately, I did not have time to place the "Madre" somewhere in Italy, as was my desire, due to the requirement by the Biennale that we remove all work immediately after the show ended. I had it shipped back by boat container. It is presently on exhibit at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Colombia, Maryland, an outdoor concert venue. The rolling green hills are a wonderful setting for large sculpture, and they have created a sculpture park on the grounds. The Italian term, Madre della Pace, translates as Mother of Peace and her stance and gesture are metaphors for her commandment to stop the destruction of the earth and her people.

Receptor-Reflector

stainless steel and bronze 10'x 5'x 1'

There are three ways an artist can go about creating a work of art. The first is to have an idea or vision and then just make it. The second way would be to begin the work without a definite idea, mostly experimenting to find it. This way often leads to several works that explore the idea. The third way would be a combination of these two processes. That would mean having a vision and experimenting along the way to find the right solutions.

Receptor-Reflector was created rather spontaneously. It started off in one direction and then the main body of the work was turned upside down. It was then that I saw the figure with outstretched hands emerge in my mind. The outstretched arms refer to receiving energy and the flat stainless steel disc projects energy, especially when the sun strikes the plate.

This work is made of stainless steel and bronze and is about ten feet tall. In some of my sculptures, I explore the use of metal rod to create rounded forms rather than hammering metal to make a solid-looking work.

D.N.A.-TOR

stainless steel and bronze 6'x 9'x 3'

The D.N.A.-TOR is a ten-foot stainless steel work that was built at the Bakehouse Artist Studios in Miami, Florida for an invitational exhibit in Merida, Mexico. I was supposed to be on a three month sabbatical from work, resting in the sun, but could not resist the invitation. The exhibit was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Yucatan (MACAY). I, along with a number of Washington Sculptors Group artists, was selected to show work in the city of Merida, in 2005 where the museum has established an exchange program with a different country every two years. In Merida, they line their elegant main boulevard with these sculptures for a year.

For this particular show, I wanted to create a work that would, at once, refer to the Mayan history of that area and also be more abstract than figurative, yet still refer to organic form. The shipping company turned out to be a large flatbed truck that picked up the work in Miami and trucked it to Texas where it was transferred to a Mexican trucker and carried on to Merida. We were required to build a large crate to ship it in and to do so we had to make the lower part of the sculpture bolt onto the upper part so it could be reassembled in Mexico. The crate we built was made to screw together so that it could be reused for the return shipment.

When I arrived in Merida, the installation crew had ripped the whole box apart and damaged some of the work. MACAY, had both the sculpture and the box repaired quickly by an excellent craftsman. My wife and I arrived in Merida for the opening, and were pleased to see how beautifully the organizers had placed the work in the center of the main city plaza.