January 1989. Black granite, bronze. Dimensions: 9 × 26 × 17 in (23 × 66 × 43 cm).
Collection of the artist.
Employing the universal metaphor of the vessel or boat—associated with passage and as a container of the “self”—Eden (1989) makes both a personal and universal statement. The title shares the name of my daughter, born on the last day of 1988, while also evoking the biblical Eden and its associations with purity and the “garden of paradise.”
Looking down at my newborn child, I saw an open vessel. Like the open cast-bronze form of the sculpture, she suggested a shell or container—unfilled and untainted. I associated this open, placid form with our newborn: pure, receptive, and poised to stake out her own destiny, yet to be filled with society’s contaminations, impurities, burdens, rules, and expectations.
January 1989. Black granite, bronze. Dimensions: 9 × 26 × 17 in (23 × 66 × 43 cm).
Collection of the artist.
Employing the universal metaphor of the vessel or boat—associated with passage and as a container of the “self”—Eden (1989) makes both a personal and universal statement. The title shares the name of my daughter, born on the last day of 1988, while also evoking the biblical Eden and its associations with purity and the “garden of paradise.”
Looking down at my newborn child, I saw an open vessel. Like the open cast-bronze form of the sculpture, she suggested a shell or container—unfilled and untainted. I associated this open, placid form with our newborn: pure, receptive, and poised to stake out her own destiny, yet to be filled with society’s contaminations, impurities, burdens, rules, and expectations.
