Gallery – Page 2 – Sculpture and Contemporary Spirituality

Holy Land

Chief Black Elk’s words, “The Holy Land is everywhere.” are cut from 1/2″ clear acrylic sheet, placed on a glass mirrored surface and weaved throughout a contemporary steel image.

24″ x 24″ x 12″

Glass, steel, acrylic

Burning Bush – 2

Burning Bush – 2

58” x 24” x 24”

Steel

The angel told Moses to remove his shoes as he approached a burning bush … not because the soil was hot but because it was holy. Chief Black Elk felt similarly. Remember, he mused, “The Holy Land is everywhere.”

This sculpture is my effort to be mindful of the sacredness of what we are about, however grand, valued or mundane.

Urn

For many, to speak of passing and of how and where we want our cremains is a topic avoided. It is also an expression of love, of others and ourselves. This is an urn to hold the ashes of a woman who has lived by the words “act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with your God.” It was created in the tradition of folk art. The bird is solid bronze, the box ceramic, and its colors hopeful.

Urn

10″ x 10″ x 12″

Ceramic, bronze

Gratitude

Janitor’s Room 729B

24″ x 24″ x 36″

Steel

I wanted to communicate a sense of gratitude for those who have the thankless task of keeping the building clean. I link the feeling of gratitude with flowers, specifically bouquets. Hence this sculpture, an abstract bouquet. I placed it in the space in which my feelings are embedded …. the housekeepers’ closet used by the women and men— largely hard working unheralded people — charged with cleaning the sinks, toilets, urinals, and floors dirtied by unthinking students both young and old. Hence a gleaming bouquet set in the windowless, clean, nondescript, generic closet identified as “729B Janitor Room.”

2023 work

During 2023 I made multiple sculptures, some large some small, by cutting and then bending an abstract steel form. See image.

As the two dimensional steel form was bent, a three dimensional sculpture was created. In some instances, the sculpture’s initial form became unrecognizable. For example:

Once comfortable with the challenges of bending the flat steel, I welded two or three of the initial forms together and then bent them. Again, a three dimensional sculpture resulted. The six photos that follow reflect some of my work during the past year. Critique/comments/questions welcome.