I wanted Strivings to highlight the lianas themselves, appear much like they do in the life of the forest. Fabricating a lumber frame that recalled electric utility towers, I then hung the lianas on the frame, notching them into it and building up the joints using epoxy putty. Here, they are not being used in a figurative sense like in previous pieces, but leading the way as animate agents in their own right. I leave them largely unaltered except for removal of bark and a lacquer finish, so the fibers and vectors of the plant’s growth stand out against the uniformity of aluminum, copper and paint.

 

Have you ever marveled at the way a tree grows through a metal fence, engulfing/partly ingesting it? In Strivings, I’ve invited nature to play formidably with human intentions, exploring the synergy between materials shaped by primary life-forces and those extracted/processed for industrial purposes. Lianas are remarkably strong. Less substantial—the malleable copper tubes engineered to conduct drinking water, acrylic paints, aluminum tape, epoxy, even pine lumber—all support and swirl around the primary life-force of the lianas.

 

In my mind as I made this piece I kept going back to a famous ancient Greek stone carving depicting Lacoön and his sons struggling against sea-serpents/pythons (sent by the gods to kill them in their sleep!) Lianas have that energy about them, a bit menacing and difficult to control, with a somewhat undeservedly bad reputation for parasitically strangling trees. So in my decision to extract them (not easily I may add) to use as primary elements in my sculpture, I thought this: I can “liberate” a few trees and let the lianas speak their pythonic, age-old warning. The lianas are saying, “don’t ever pretend nature resides at a distance, become familiar with it, understand it as neither bad nor good, follow its lead.“ We, it so often said, and perhaps more pertinently everything we do, are nature.

 

A word about the palette and surface treatments—pink (a certain synthetic lab-create organic compound, quinacridone), rust, sage green, raw copper and aluminum surfaces, natural wood tones. This is Rust Belt (the industrial northeast U.S., where I grew up) alchemy rather than a color-scheme per se. I love the way applying the aluminum tape adds an unmistakable silver gloss, contrasting the orange of copper, and at the same time enhances the grain in the lumber with a new layer of texture. Where to lay the boundary between colors and surface treatments, not determined by any underlying physical features or overt logic? It comes down to a major roll of the dice, an openness to outcomes beyond my control and intentions.