Buoy (1995) distills John Van Alstine's interest in tools and navigation into a more personal metaphor. Inspired by maritime objects gathered near his Jersey City studio, the buoy becomes less a literal form and more a marker of position—traditionally guiding passage, here reimagined as a way of tracking one's creative journey. Van Alstine's notion of “dropping buoys” suggests each sculpture as a point of reference, recording where he has been and what he was thinking.

The combination of granite and steel reinforces a familiar tension in his work: a floating form rendered in heavy, grounded materials. This paradox creates a sense of suspended motion, animating the inanimate while holding it in balance. Within his broader career, Buoy extends his use of implements beyond function into reflection, linking navigation in the physical world to the internal process of making and meaning.