dirt clocks

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE EARTH 

DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA, 1989-92

The Other Side of the Earth consists of two rammed Earth wall like slabs placed on either side of the promontory currently occupied by The Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park. The wall like slabs have been an intuitively aligned and integrated into the natural contours of the site in such a way as to suggest a single continuous form penetrating the hillside. By virtue of their placement on the opposite sides of the hill, it is impossible to see both elements simultaneously. Typically, the viewer will come upon one side and sometime later will discover the other side of the Earth. The simple process of transversing the grounds and visually discovering the opposite elements results in a conceptual unification of the parts of a whole, and simultaneously reveals the existing inherent poetic conditions within the natural contours of the site. The viewer comes in communion with time and space, with the nature of things, and with the earth underneath their feet.

DIRT CLOCK  

Ohio State University, Hopkins and Hayes Hall, Columbus, OH, 1978 – 1980

Dirt Clock consists of raw earth and straw formed into an 8’ x 8’ rammed earth cube, placed in an urban courtyard, a garden.  It is an embodiment of the past. It takes on a life of its own. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Each day, it becomes a nonrepresentational record of its place and time, a world of natural phenomenon, response, intervention, dialogue occurring in and around and about the piece. Ultimately, it is transfigured and transformed. It ceases to be as it was once conceived. It takes on a new life, and a new form. Perhaps a flower bed, a field of grass, or simply transported and diffused on the soles of shoes.

ECLIPSE  

East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 1989

Eclipse, a rammed earth landform that has a reference to the past, has an implied architectural historic presence. It does not refer to specific place or time but rather evokes a sense of that which has come before.  Eclipse illudes to ancient ruins exposed by erosion or by the archaeologist's hand, revealing only a fraction of a much larger built world long gone by.

OTHER EARTH WORKS and DRAWINGS