My Pompeii 2001-2002

Supported by a City of LA Cultural Award Grant, 2001

Could I make a sculpture that would be part landscape, part figuration, and part architecture? I wanted to fuse and confuse these things in a way that sculptural and pictorial conventions would also be at loggerheads . Inspiration was taken from the relics and mosaics at Herculaneum, but the flavor would be very much of Southern California. As 3d-modeling was becoming more widely available at the time, I wanted to build it in a way that would mirror the way shapes are made in the 3-d space but limit it to a very hands-on, laborious physical process.

About 10 feet square and roughly 2-1/2 feet tall, the piece seems to float a few inches off the floor. Think: magic carpet. Colors were chosen to counteract the sculptural form.

The images below depict the process. Since the piece was made for the COLA grant exhibition, there was a hard deadline. I had 7 months to make it. Once it was clear how many shapes would be required in each layer, I calculated the number of parts I would need to complete every day (seven days a week) to finish on time. I simply had to reach that number every day - some days it took 16 or 18 hours to get there. Many thanks to my friend, Pat Roberts, who was the model willing to be encased in plaster to begin the project.