The sculptures are meant to look as if they were discovered at the bottom of the sea, with an enigmatic history suggesting naiads, but unknown. The thick turquoise patina was achieved by immersing the sculpture in a saltwater bath. Areas of shiny bronze, where the patina was polished off, represent the lingering traces of the naiads’ touch.
Bronze carries both a high art tradition and an archaeological reference. Bronze is like human imagining. It carries a history, a mystery that drives you to find out why.
Atrophos Sculptures
100 tiny bronze sculptures on wooden pedestals
Atrophos Sculptures began as small studies for a larger piece. During the process I heard their voices, insisting that they were not, in fact, studies but individual sculptures. I built a hundred tiny pedestals, one for each tiny sculpture, and exhibited the 100 sculptures as a group.
Of the three fates, Atrophos is the one that cuts the thread of life. (Clothos spins the thread, Lachesis determines its length). Atrophos has become an element of a personal mythology and symbolism used in some of my pieces. These sculptures are fashioned from unearthed tree roots found among massive piles of dead trees, cut down in a place being cleared for building. All movement is frozen timelessly, like echos of the trees crying out.
