Metafossil (Pinus: ponderosa, radiata, balfouriana)*

Three elements, 7 ft., 10 ft. and 12 ft. long, steel, refractory cement, species specific pine boughs and needles.

Installed: Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, 1992.

Collection of deYoung Museum, San Francisco, CA.

 

Metafossil.., has three principal elements in which the structure of each unit was developed by the layering of a single species of needle-laden pine branches in wet refractory cement over a steel armature to make a "proto-fossil" of each variety in the form of a descending ship. The pine needles were collected from their contemporary native habitat in the mountains of coastal and central California. The form of the descending ship refers to the process of geologic deposition of sedimentary/natural material and the transience of ‘indigenous’ bio-cultures across the landscape as a result of climactic change.

A video, Metafossil (Metabolism and Mortality), 1995, documenting the pine bough collection and native sites, and this exhibition at GPA, as well as, Species-Facies Study (sic), 1992, a text study and poetic extrapolation/meditation of the species, sites, processes and histories suggested by Metafossil.., are collaborative elements often shown in consort with the sculptures.

*The title was shortened from Metafossil (Metabolism and Mortality) Pinus: ponderosa, radiata, balforiana, in about 1996.

 

Art in America review of GPA Exhibition; Installation at the deYoung Museum, 1995

Pinus Collection Maps; Species-Facies Study (sic)