Legacy...

In July, I had the privilege of donating one of my early sculptures, “A.M.,” to the collection of Michigan Legacy Art Park. If you’re not familiar with Michigan Legacy, it’s an artistic gem located on the grounds of Crystal Mountain Resort in Thompsonville, Michigan. The 30-acre park is dotted with amazing public works set a beautiful natural landscape. It is definitely worth checking out and if you get over that way, take a look at my piece (see map).

For those familiar with my work, “A.M.” was created in 1993 and has been exhibited in a number of venues representing a variety of settings. In 1993, A.M. was featured in Contemporary Sculpture 1993 at Quietude Garden Gallery in East Brunswick, NJ. The exhibition was juried by noted sculptors George Segal and Isaac Witkin and was also selected for an Award of Artistic Merit. Other exhibitions that this sculpture has been included in include: Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition (95-96) at Burlington County College in Pemberton, NJ, Between The Bridges (97) at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, NY, and Rhapsody in Bloom Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition (05) at Luthy Botanical Gardens in Peoria, IL. The work was also written about in the New York Times by critic William Zimmer in 1993 and by critic Burton Wasserman in Art Matters in 1996. Wasserman also discusses the piece in a video program entitled “Inner Voices / Outer Forms,” which was produced by Burlington County College Media Productions in 1995.

This piece was originally created as an outdoor sculpture and was intended to contrast the structural elements of its construction against the natural elements in its surroundings. (When I originally built this piece, I was placing works in one of the many gardens on the campus of C.W. Post.) Reacting to the found object (the cast iron form at the top of the work), I utilized a combination of angular materials–bricks and angled steel–to create a rigid structure and weight that would help the arched line of the cast iron to stand out as a focal point. My inspiration for this sculpture was the idea of an oven, which to me represented change. Ovens convert things from one state to another and I found this reference intriguing as I sought to contradict nature with the work. Later on in the history of the work, I added the “5” design on the bricks as somewhat of a nod to the industrial-type abstractions of Charles Demuth. So, my original intention was to have this piece stand as a monument to the changes that we as humans force on the natural world around us and reference the “oven” as a means of effecting such changes.


Michigan Legacy Art Park Website