Anhinga

86”x 56”x 50”
Aluminum
2008
$5,500 (sold)
Westover Business Center; Hickory, NC

In designing Anhinga, I did not have any representational or conceptual intentions.  I was simply working with forms in space to create a visual experience for the viewer.  I wanted to elicit a feeling of motion and interaction between the three pieces.  As you walk around the sculpture, you will find that there is really no front or back; the three pieces can be seen as a new composition from each viewing angle.

When I finished fabricating the sculpture, I saw birdlike qualities to the forms, so I searched through my bird book for inspiration for a title. I found it in the anhinga, a water bird that lives in a range from the southeastern U.S. to northern Argentina.  The overall form of the sculpture does not look like an anhinga, but each piece suggests a part of the bird.  With a bit of imagination, you can see the outstretched neck, the upward-lifted wings, and the diving tail of an anhinga.