Photographic print of foamcore sculpture.
36” x 29"

Since doing the flat still life I have been looking for other subjects to reduce to their simplest elements.

I think the hardest thing for people to do is to stay open to moment and be willing to go down a new road without knowing where it leads. I saw a photo in a newspaper. It was mostly a jumble of shapes but just a tiny part of it caught my eye. I sketched it, enlarged it, rearranged and kept going. I made small models to see what “vocabulary” I could use here. It is part of the same body of work and mindset as Very Still Life. But twice as big and ten times more pieces.

In both cases I wanted to cut shapes out of foam and make one piece of art out of the pieces removed and a separate piece out of the mass that remained. Which increases the degree of difficulty.

Is it obvious what our subject matter is? Hint: It is representational art. Not abstract.

I knew I wanted to carve the foam core. I knew I wanted to end up with at least two pieces of art. So, for weeks I carved an hour or two a day, laying out the pieces on a horizontal surface behind me. The Houston light streaming in illuminated the pieces from their feet vs typical overhead. That’s when i knew my end product was meant to be a photo. Beshert. I had it printed three different ways. And so far this is our favorite sculpture that grew up to be a photograph. Art is funny. You just never know.

Open to the moment.