"Full Circle"

Remarks: 

"Full Circle" was created for the Art on the Trails 2022 exhibition in Southborough, MA, at the Beals Preserve. This sculpture explores the circle of life and meditates on the passage of time. At its base, a weathered tree stump evokes the enduring presence of nature and the life that has come before. Resting atop the stump is an aluminum casting of my daughter’s hands and arms, delicately cradling a hand-crafted copper tree seedling. The hands symbolize care, continuity, and the human role in nurturing growth, while the copper seedling embodies renewal, resilience, and the potential for new life. Together, these elements create a dialogue between past, present, and future—a meditation on how life perpetually regenerates itself. The sculpture invites viewers to reflect on the intertwined cycles of nature and human experience, capturing a moment of both intimacy and universality.

As part of Art on the Trails annual exhibit, poets are also selected to write a piece based upon the accepted artworks. Here is the poem written for my sculpture:

This Time Around

by Fred Gerhard

Imagine the uprooted stump of your life

cut clear of foliate fancies

all the bared tendrils pungent rife

with your dark wet soul

ripped open from filament memory

torn

a unique individual disconnected

the tangle of your days exposed

recalling child hands

child arms descending

silvery as meadow moonlight recognized

as your own

holy ghost arriving to cup to hold to bestow

the coppery dust of your life

the very metal of you

become light

to turn a leaf tarnished

and tawny

this time around

start at the heartwood exposed

the expanse of rings

encircling

all that went

before