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Judith
This sculpture is based on the Buddhist Stupas of South-East Asia. These monuments are often covered with gold leaf and by enveloping this one with a hand-braided rug my intention was to convey similar qualities found within the human spirit. Through its inversion, this form now points to the earth rather than the heavens above, unlike the spire of a Cathedral, the minarets of a Mosque or even a Buddhist stupa. Reversing this direction -this pointing- very simply expresses that our earth is also a heavenly body. |
| The sculpture began with the construction of the platform for mounting the high density Styrofoam. The Styrofoam was stacked and glued after being "roughed out" into form. The piece weighed approximately 600 pounds at this point and was twelve feet in diameter. It was then mounted on a device similar to a potter's wheel, rotated at a high speed and shaped while turning to produce the perfectly smooth, cylindrical form. |
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| The braided fabric had been woven and sewn together for a family floor forty years earlier. I removed the sewing and the resulting single braid was 2, 800 feet in length, which I then washed and ran through a 1954 Maytag ringer to flatten it. My assistants rotated the work as I applied the one-inch wide braid and it took five attempts of putting the braid on and off again to get the color combination right. Once I was satisfied, the entire braid was removed and glued to the surface of the form three feet at a time. |
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| Inverting the bottom form and mechanically attaching it to the ceiling was the first part of the installation. Then the second smaller piece, the spire of the work, was inverted and positioned into place with the seam between the two covered by the continuous braid. The completed work weighs about one thousand pounds and was constructed in two parts for removal from the space and ease of transportation. |
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