July 1980. Colorado flagstone, steel. Dimensions: 24 × 30 × 16 in (61 × 76 × 41 cm).
The Trough Series is part of my tensegrity, or Brute Series, in which gravity and the pressure of the stones provide the energy—or “glue”—that holds the sculpture together without welding. The title references the physical form of a trough. The stones tilt back against the forged steel, each bearing upon the other to create an interdependent structure in which weight becomes an active structural force.
Rather than carving the stone or using it to represent something else, I allow its inherent simple rectangular form, mass, and weight—and the structural behavior of the steel—to become the subject of the sculpture. Gravitational forces are channeled and made visible through the interlocking forged-steel bars, creating a static energy event—a sculpture held in arrested motion. In this sense, the Trough Series is deliberately self-referential—sculpture about sculpture, assemblage about assemblage—while exploring a recurring concern in my work: how opposing forces—weight and lift, mass and movement, tension and stability—can be brought into expressive balance.
July 1980. Colorado flagstone, steel. Dimensions: 24 × 30 × 16 in (61 × 76 × 41 cm).
The Trough Series is part of my tensegrity, or Brute Series, in which gravity and the pressure of the stones provide the energy—or “glue”—that holds the sculpture together without welding. The title references the physical form of a trough. The stones tilt back against the forged steel, each bearing upon the other to create an interdependent structure in which weight becomes an active structural force.
Rather than carving the stone or using it to represent something else, I allow its inherent simple rectangular form, mass, and weight—and the structural behavior of the steel—to become the subject of the sculpture. Gravitational forces are channeled and made visible through the interlocking forged-steel bars, creating a static energy event—a sculpture held in arrested motion. In this sense, the Trough Series is deliberately self-referential—sculpture about sculpture, assemblage about assemblage—while exploring a recurring concern in my work: how opposing forces—weight and lift, mass and movement, tension and stability—can be brought into expressive balance.
