Flying Concrete

After thin concrete and moveable concrete, the next logical step seemed to be flying concrete. I decided on spheres and virtual spheres hollowed out from solid spheres. Some are assembled in Calder-inspired mobiles, while others form the body of quasi-representational cherubim -- cherubim, however, that have picked up human characteristics along the way.

The "Radio beasts" and "iP and ad" are toy-like creatures. In fact, the latter sport wheels and a thin chain with which they can be pulled along, much like the toy rabbit I was photographed with as a toddler, or like the 3,000-year-old small clay horse with wheels, unearthed in a child's grave at the ancient Athenian cemetery of Keramikos. It seems appropriate that the papier mâchè packaging of modern "toys" -- a radio of 20th c. technology and a 21st c. iPad -- should give birth to pieces which hark back to their cultural predecessors. Playing the radio and "playing" with the iPad are related to the play essential to children and artists.

As is their wont, ideas evolve with each piece pointing the way to the next. The  sphere-mobiles led to the cherubim -- spheres working together with flat copper sheeting pieces. This in turn established the notion of combining 2D lightweight copper with heavy 3D concrete -- not necessarily spherical, as in Yogi Art, where the concrete parts are cast in yogurt cups. And this leads to the use of  found objects, in the form of packaging material, as forms for casting the concrete component of the piece -- and the piece is no longer flying, although in the case of the Radio Beasts, cast from a radio's packaging, the implication is that they could, if they wanted to, using their wing-like copper appendages. In the next step, iP and ad, the formwork (from an iPad's packaging) is not removed and the concrete is mostly concealed, lending its weight to the pieces and providing the nexus for the copper.