Pond is an installation of kinetic sculptures with audience participation. The sculptures animate the gallery space when moved by the viewer. I liken the rotation of the randomly spaced poles to the act of casting several stones into still water.
These pieces came about with a question in my mind at one time. Thinking about how one has to consider the element of stability to hold a three‑dimensional work, we sometimes have to create a massive base or support to hold it down. So my question was, what if you reduce that that base to a single point – will it still work as a sculpture?
I was toying with a stick, string, and clay in my studio. I came up with the interesting result of spinning poles that are held by string on the top with the stick resting on a nail.
I made the early pieces in the Philippines from bamboo topped with wood. This work was installed in the middle of the gallery space when it was shown in Manila in the early Eighties.
Later, when I started making installations in California, I used lathed redwood for the poles. I thought it was important that the wood should be indigenous to the place of the installation. I added another element to this work for the installation in California. I surrounded the randomly spaced poles with video images of moving clouds, the same clouds that we watch revolving around the Earth.
This installation is another phase of the evolution of this work, developed from the environment here and its material resources. The poles are made from bamboo, and lychee and mango wood that I gathered. The video images are of the land, the sea, and the sky of this work's new environment.
Acknowledgements:
Special thanks to those who made the show possible, Allan Jim, Rhonda and George Wollard, Kathleen O'Brian, Emmanuel Sarahan, Yoo Soo Kim, Emmy Villa.
