Wind and Repose

Stillness, holding a line to something that refuses to be still.

Modeled from the posture of someone who has stopped moving but has not stopped paying attention. The line is structural: it carries the two masses of the work in tension across empty air.

The line is not decoration. It carries the two masses of the work across empty air, and everything in the fabrication follows from that.

The figure is cast in stainless steel by lost wax, in five sections. The kite is cast separately and thinner than it looks — weight had to come out of it so the line could keep the diameter the drawing wanted. The line itself is drawn stainless rod, bent by hand against a form and then annealed so it holds the curve without spring.

The three parts are welded under argon and the welds are chased until the line appears to pass through the metal rather than into it. This is the join that decides the work, and the one that cannot be corrected once the surface is polished, so it is finished before any abrasive touches the figure.

Then the artist's hand: mirror on the reclining body, satin on the underside and the plinth. The figure returns the room, and the room is what the figure is watching. Eighty hours per example.