WINGED THINGS ICONOGRAPHY

“Two As One”
5”x5”x12” Bronze mesh, stainless steel armature and cables

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One of my earliest memories as a child was of looking up and seeing spruce airfoils, which had been parts for my father’s gliders that he made as a teen, and flew off local cliffs near his home.

I always loved the forms, but had no idea how to incorporate them into my art work, which had previously been inspired by African inspired fetishes. One day, I decided to just to leap into sculpture that revolved around the forms I loved.

Around that time, I was asked to design 3 lobby works for a developer building a corporate headquarters for NY AT&T. I did not realize when I proposed works with winged imagery that the client had been an aeronautical engineer in his previous life and loved the theme.

I also did not realize at first that using winged imagery was consistent with the fetish imagery, as both incorporated archetypal symbols and imagery..

Exploring winged symbolic forms gradually folded inward and became cocoons and boats, a way of dealing with the death of my father, who had worked with me fabricating some of the larger commissioned works.

Perhaps the clearest opportunity for using wings as an obvious spiritual symbol was for Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire, WI. The hospital, owned an operated by a Franciscan order of nuns felt strongly that art had a very important part in the healing process and in their ministry, which centered on service. The core element of the 34’ sculpture suspended in the lobby atrium as an homage to St Francis, was a pair of 2 golden wing forms surrounded by tiny versions of the same curved elements in glass resembling clusters of birds. Just in case it was lost on the viewer, on of the large abstract golden wings morphed into realistic looking “feathers” at its tip.

Heaven-specific design again was used in another hospital, St Vincent’s in Linwood, CA, operated by the Daughters of Charity Order; the same order of nuns that came to CA with the Spanish priests and established the mission trail centuries ago. The newest addition to the hospital, where I was commissioned to design and produce an 87’ suspended work, was designed as an abstract glass version of a cathedral, using the symbolic numerical equivalents to express the trinity, the 4 apostles, etc, The sisters specifically requested that the sculpture be a series of bells, as the lobby tower resembled a campanilla, albeit a glass one. The bells, conforming to the interior space of the gradually narrowing “tower”, spiraled as if ascending to the heavens. In the place of the expected clappers, were cast roses, an homage to the patron saint of the hospital and to the Latino community, largely Mexican immigrant, of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the iconography of the virgin surrounded by roses.

Using the roses was a design risk, loved by the nuns, but not understood by all. But I knew that I had succeeded in my personal goal when a neighborhood visitor saw the sculpture for the first time, dropped to his knees with tears in his eyes and genuflected.