The Lady of the West Desert

“It’s only a model…” “Shhh!!”

Current model of this planned monumental ceramic-tile-faced basalt sculpture. Sigourney Weavers are 6′ tall for scale. 

No, it’s not a very good model. But it’s a seed, and I made it for myself to remind me of what I’m going to grow. This project will (like everything) be highly iterative.

A giant sculpture of a seated cross-legged woman. Tough black basalt, like Jael’s inuksuk that didn’t want to die in the fire. She’s too big to carve from a single stone, so she’d have to be constructed of multiple slabs. Dry laid mortise and tenon, so there’s no mortar to weather out. Faced with a mosaic of tens of thousands of vitreously-fired stoneware tiles, each one engraved with a message from a participant. Let people send messages ten thousand or more years into the future…

The tag hanger projects are all part of the foundation for it, hand in hand with developing the prompt or prompts for it. The next phase involves building a larger model, but one that’s still manageable in size since I won’t have a functioning workshop for the next couple of years or so, so maybe 18″-24″ tall.

The workshop we’re building is actually specced to create and house the eventual “touring” model, which will be around 8′ wide (just under the limit for “wide load” status on American highways). At this point the Lady will be a fully participatory, trash-built massive sculpture on a trailer so she’ll be able to visit many different events. Her hair will be tag-hanger territory, with tens of thousands of recycled cardstock tags available for people to write on. I’ll also weave in some light effects so she’s extra compelling after dark. We’ll engineer a tarp “hairnet” so she isn’t shedding tags all over the Interstate when we tow her around.

More pictures of the model:

When you’re planning to build a 40′ tall sculpture of black basalt that will hopefully last for millennia, it takes a while to really understand what you’re trying to create. I have had the vision for the Lady in my head for several years now, but she’s going to take many, many iterations before the real form of her comes clear.

Here are some process pictures:

These little “trash sculptures” have cores made of shipping garbage, faced with cloth tape and finished with drywall mud. They are relatively quick and cheap to make, and I’ll be making many more of them going forward, each one as an exploration of the form.