Wednesday, November 4, 2009

CASA Light of Hope Sculpture Unveiling












Three years work culminates this coming Friday with the unveiling of Light of Hope in Downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. The sculpture in bronze of two life-sized children was commissioned by CASA of East Tennessee. CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates for abused and neglected children in juvenile court. These volunteers represent the best interests of the victimized child with the goal of securing a safe, permanent home. Both Federal and State laws allow judges to appoint CASA volunteers to "speak up" for the child's best interests. Light of Hope is both a memorial to loves lost due to child abuse and a celebration of lives saved by caring.

Friday, November 6th 2009 at 2pm at the Carey E. Garrett Juvenile Court Building in Knoxville, TN.
The concepts for the sculpture were explored and refined in numerous meetings between myself and the CASA volunteers, board members and director, Carolyn Doty. Initally we did not know if it would be marble or bronze, abstract or representational. At one point I asked "What emotion(s) do you want the sculpture to evoke? What do you want people to feel when they see this piece?" The answer was "Rage. And Hope." Rage that this problem exists in our community, Hope that we can make a positive change. From that consensus, I presented a dozen designs that were discussed and refind into the powerful piece you see today. I chose the shape of a compressed triangle to deliberately call attention that this was not a standard "stable" square or rectangle, that something was askew. Diagonals in artworks are "action" loaded, and as you follow the sidewalk around the sculpture, the diagonals created by the stone call for action. I chose the black granite stone and the traditional cemetary base stone as a not-so-subtle reminder that this is a true monument. The distressed child on the right sits atop the inscription "In Memory of Lives Lost to Child Abuse" and the compforting child on the left, who has an arm around the shoulders of the first child, sits atop the inscription "In Celebration of Lives Saved Through Caring." The life-sized children are a compilation of kind neighbors' and friends' children as I did not have specific models to work from.

Phooey on Vandalism


Replaced the three stolen bronze sculptures in downtown Bristol for the permanent children's scavenger hunt based in the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" over Halloween week-end. It was a huge amount of effort and work for so many folks! But they are back in place, with a significant increase in the amount of concrete and steel securing....

Let the Caterpillar Crawl Resume!