Artist Statement
In the
spring of 2003, after ten years as a public school teacher and before
that, 13 years as
a photographer, I decided to commit to my career as an artist. I have been
making sculptures in rebar (steel reinforcing bar) and rock since early
2004. I had planned to do some charcoal drawings, mainly for their
simplicity of material and graphic quality of drawing, but I wanted to draw
in three dimensions. Instead of using smooth, rolled steel, I chose rebar
because it simulates the textured line produced by charcoal stick.
At first I was doing more decorative pieces specifically for the backyard, but then I wanted to move away from ‘yard art’ so popular at crafts fairs. I have always been interested in the adaptations and structure of desert plants, as well as the effects of development on the environment, so this became my theme for the rebar sculptures. The rebar wrapped around rocks mimics the way saguaro cactus roots wrap around rocks to stay anchored in the wind. The twisted, woody stem of the desert buckwheat, eriogonum fasciculatum (see image below), forms the basis for the braided, twisted strands of rebar. Several pieces, such as Encroachment, Torn, and Family Tree, reflect the environmental theme.
As much as desert plants inspire the form of the pieces, the sculptures are also about bending rebar which has its own set of tactile and visual properties as a result of heating and bending. The texture of rebar, originally designed to help anchor it in concrete, becomes organic and plant-like when it is twisted and wrapped around itself, rocks or bricks, such that it seems to have been molded that way. It loses its construction material quality and becomes more fluid and unique.
The hanging shirt sculptures are line drawings of shirts, hanging on clotheslines, swinging in the breeze. It is the rebar that provides a contrast between the dense, stiff material and the subject.
