SPINES ALLUVIAL

SPINES ALLUVIAL - 36 x 120 x 30” - ENVIRONMENTAL SCULPTURE: CARVED VERMONT MARBLE - 2015

Spines alluvial is an immersive marble sculpturethat forms an intimate landscape, where two bodies may be held within its flowing gestures. The river form space for the body are made by carving and gradually wearing away the stone with sanding and abrasion. Stone and debris is cut away, washed, and polished with water, mirroring the process in nature that forms rivers and coastlines. A sensory environment to be found, and entered. Situated ten feet up, atop a towering stack of white Vermont marble, and surrounded by the regenerated woods of a 100 year old marble quarry...

INTERACTION | A Dynamic Natural Environment

Interactive images and description.

MAKING | A Site-Specific Process

As the primary cut pieces of the Terrapin began to take shape, I began the process of cutting lines to cut off the rough skin of the flat stones, curving them inward into the convex interior. It is a form of rough drawing that more quickly removes material in chunks than the more gradual sanding. It was a surprise when people began asking me if I would keep these lines. In much of my previous work I have erased the trace of these marks. Increasingly I have sought to keep more of the character in raw material apparent in my transitions. I found that within the particular nature of this quartzite sandstone, which has more figuring and complex marks of it’s own from formation, that the marks took on a meaning as people observed the process and in some cases became attached to them, because of the personal connection they developed through the tactile experience of touching them, and the narratives they imagined relating to what a Terrapin must go through in the course of it’s life. Also the lines form a kind of unknown hieroglyphics, for some, that strongly resonate with the site. As I began to cut the outer ring of stones, I found in turn that the cut lines of my drawing did reveal a way for me to more smoothly resolve together the sawn cut edges with the natural broken edges, and the rough outside to smooth inside, unifying the overall landscape of textures and the way that light also plays across the sculpture.