Whirl

Forged & fabricated steel and aluminum with internal lighting, catalyzed urethane over epoxy primer, 18' x 21' x 8'

In 1980 I started college in Memphis, eventually working as an apprentice blacksmith and gallery technician at the Metal Museum overlooking the Mississippi River. Today, I serve on the Metal Museum’s Board of Trustees. The “Bluff City” will always feel like my second home. I won this commission nearly 15 years after moving to Illinois, and so in a way, it has always represented a “homecoming” to me. It was voted “Best Place in Memphis to Take a Free Date”—the beginning of my understanding of public art’s importance. Whirl was not my first piece of public art, but it remains one of my favorites. With hindsight, I can now see its design marks the moment when I truly found my aesthetic footing as a sculptor.

Vance Park, Memphis, Tennessee. Commissioned by UrbanArt, a division of the Greater Memphis Arts Council (National competition, 2001)