Three Spheres Public Art Project

A public art commission located at
Vineyard Creek Hotel and Conference Center,
Santa Rosa, CA

This work evolves around forms and visual icons that foster contemplation of one's assumptions about the passage of time, and insignias of action which are 'time essential'.

Three Spheres is a sculptural composition that reflects upon understanding the geometry inherent in nature, constructs of the intellect, and ideas that cultivate a synthesis of the archaic and the contemporary.

Celestial observation, alchemy, art, astronomy and mathematical laws all combine within the sculpture and invite your consideration of the present moment.

My intent is to create work that reflects upon these mysteries and upon one's fundamental understandings of time, light, and space.

The large sphere is titled "Tondo." The surface appointments include pi, the I Ching, Kuai / Breakthrough and the constellation Cassiopeia.

The "Star Dancer" gesturing to the heavens pays homage to astronomer Dr. Maria Sundin my collaborator in the field of galactic dynamics.

Orbiting Tondo is "Tondolino" a smaller green sphere with alchemical symbols pertaining to Essence and Sublime and the constellation Pleiades.

Nearby and slightly elevated is the sphere "Morning Essence."

All three spheres are fabricated from steel armatures covered with sand/cement and nylon fiber. The final surface treatment is composed of white sand, dolomite, and white cement defined by circular brass appointments.

Each sphere has it's own carriage that allows it's rotation in place. Tondolino and Morning Essence can also be moved to other locations within their orbits on selected occasions such as the Solstice and Equinox.

My work is about the hands of man and how materials and ideas combine into sculptures that exhibit both command and inquiry, power and submission, all the while conveying to the viewer and participant, ideas that touch upon universal truths.

I work continuously to satisfy something that eludes me. Something that others before me have worked to define and refine. I'm part of a lineage that finds solace in defining oneself by designing with materials of the earth into a work of art that informs and inspires inquiry within while also seeking audience and affinity with others who recognize the value of this pursuit.

"The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is forever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls."
Henry David Thoreau

Spheres of thought and inquiry, planets and cells, ideas and concepts, individuals and communities, micro and macrocosms that have common parallels and paradoxes which delight me.