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Much of my work is the result of accident
-- which another way of saying that it is guided by the subconscious
or, alternatively, by a greater spiritual being. Each description
works equally well.
The New Liberty
is an example. I had been working with boards behind my scupltural
objects, and I cut a half circle for this piece, with the shape
and image of the crown of The Statue of Liberty. It looked too
balanced, however, so I tipped it.
But what to do with the rest of the head? How was it to be
adorned? The seven-headed hydra of the
SLA was an image deeply enmeshed in my mind, and I made a mental
association. So I added twigs -- seven in number (with a partial
eighth where it meet the spikes of the original crown). And from
this emerged Liberty with a dual crown.
When first presented by the French and installed on Bedloe's
(Liberty) Island in 1886, Miss Liberty symbolized America's inclusiveness,
welcoming the huddled masses of the world; but it was mostly
Europeans that she greeted in the early years. Africans had generally
come earlier, often at different ports and generally under vastly
different circumstances.
Now America greets those of free Africa, South and Central
America, the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands and the Far East.
So The New Liberty found a new crown, blending East with
West, South with North.
For America, it has been a symbiotic, highly functional
blending, a blending that the SLA could never have achieved through
force and intimadation.
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