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This a sculpture in response to the new censorship we are seeing in our public libraries. It reminds me of films I have seen of the Nazi book burning of the late 1930’s. It’s not that big a jump from banning books to burning books. The title makes reference to Ray Bradbury book about burning books titled Fahrenheit 451, which is the burning point of paper. You can set a book on fire with a match. A steel book takes an ox-acetylene torch. Take that book burners.

It is a gift to a friend who is a retired educator.

This is a sculpture I have been working on for over a year. The story is about Ikarus, the son of Daedalus. Daedalus was the designer of the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. The king, as kings do, wanted the secret of the Labyrinth, to you know, remain secret. So…  Daedalus had to take the secret to his grave. Daedalus didn’t want to die, so he built two sets of wings, one for him and one for Ikarus. They were attached to their shoulders with wax, of all things. Daedalus told Ikarus not to fly too close to the sun. As we all know, Ikarus was filled with hubris, and when he flew too high, the wax melted, and good bye Ikarus.

What no one knows is that Daedalus had built wings before. When Ikarus was very young, Daedalus built a tricycle with wings as a third birthday present.  So, the sculpture is called “Happy Third Birthday Ikarus, Love Daedalus”. Well, that’s the end of this shaggy dog story.

The wings are cedar and steel, and the trike is steel with plastic wheels.

I have been working on the idea of a sculpture of Icarus for several years. I built one abstract sculpture that almost worked. It sat in my welding yard for about 18 months. I finally took it apart two weeks ago. Here is one of the new wings. The working title is “Happy 3rd Birthday, Icarus, From Daedalus.” At this point, both of the wings will be mounted on a really old tricycle. The wing is made of cedar and steel, 3 feet wide by 4 feet tall.

Another concrete and cedar sculpture. The first design had the cedar upright centered between the concrete “wings”. It lacked any tension. By slanting the concrete “wings” it became more dynamic. The juxtaposition of the rough hard concrete with the smooth organic texture of the cedar is one of the main features of this sculpture. The distribution of the weight with the heavier parts of the concrete on the top adds the visual imbalance. As with all my sculpture, coming up with a name became an exercise in whimsy. The piece is 16” tall by 6” by 10”.

This is my second concrete and cedar sculpture. Working upside down, inside out, and backwards is hard. Concrete molds are a negative of the finished piece. I used regular 4000 PSI concrete. No colorant. I like the idea of not trying to disguise the nature of the concrete. One of the things I like about concrete is its plasticity while casting and setting. The juxtaposition of the plasticity when working with it as opposed to the absolute rigidity of it when it cures appeals to me. The contrast between the the warm quality of the cedar and the hard coldness of the concrete is why I call it Mirror Mirror. It is 4 inches thick by 14 inches long by 16 inches tall. The concrete makes the piece quite heavy.

This is my first piece using concrete. I have been thinking about concrete as a sculptural medium for some time. It was the perfect medium for this sculpture. This is the first piece in a series. It is 25” tall by 8” deep by 5” wide. It is made of 4000psi concrete, cedar and 3/16” thick steel plate.

This is a piece that had many starts and restarts. It started out as a large abstract plant and with the addition of the “seed pod” it changed. I looked at many seed pods and thought I would add something like fiddlehead ferns to it. When the seed pod with the fiddlehead ferns was attached to the stalk, it looked like some kind of strange beast. Hence the name Florasaurus. Half plant (flora) half dinosaur (saurus). The piece is 5 feet tall by about 3 feet deep by 3 feet wide.

This is my newest project/sculpture.  I am calling it Mountain Seed Pod.  This is it under construction.  You will notice the complete lack of the actual seed pod so far.  I am working on it and it’s stem. It is made predominantly of rebar.  There will be other materials as I continue fleshing the sculpture out.

A hundred thousand years ago satellite plants thrived in what would become the American Great Plains. These plants, shaped like inverted mushrooms, were ubiquitous. Huge herds of mastodons that roamed the plains fed on them and dispersed the seeds throughout North America.

These seeds grew into satellite dishes. There were no satellites so there was nothing for them to do. As the mastodons died out so did the satellite plants until they were very rare. Then the British discovered a use for them in WWII as radar transmitters and receivers.

Now through the miracle of modern genetics a much smaller version of these incredible plants was made possible. Dishes have once again become ubiquitous on our homes throughout the world. This sculpture is a homage to these hardy plants. (If you believe this, I have a bridge for sale, Cheap!),