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New Work

Interactive sound sculpture, metal and twine, 2018

 

Wildflower Sculpture Park

South Mountain Reservation

10 Bear Lane, Maplewood, NJ

Soothesayer began as a public art proposal to the Wildflower Sculpture Park for the South Mountain Reservation. I was inspired during a site visit with prospective artists, the curator Tricia Zimic, and the head conservationist. We walked through the forest and I tried to keep my mind open to the land around us. The dead tree stood out. It looked strong in death, determined to stick around. It had long shed most of it's bark and nearly all of it's limbs. The exposed layer smooth and intricately etched by decades of infestation. It had, immediately, struck me as through it emanated a powerfulness. In my working of this sculpture, I set out to harness it in the guise of an Oracle. I see it as a sacred space, as a place to be. To go to the tree will be an act of reverence for the cycles of life. To go to the tree will be a nod to this dead trunk as a monument of what was, still standing in defiance of the past. To hear the sound of the tree, to be called to it by the sweet little sounds, is a siren song where the woods are calling to us, reminding us that we are one, all natural things, locked into cycles of mortality. Perhaps the title will entreat a visitor to ask for a sign and receive the chimes as an answer to their ethereal queries.