Sky, Mud and Bones 2002
Canefield, New Iberia, LA.
In the area around St. Martin and Iberia Parishes in southern Louisiana the various stages of sugar cane production can be observed at different times of the year. During the zenith of the growing season the heat and humidity are definitive. The warm, humid night wraps itself around an ever growing cacophony of insect and animal sounds that seems to grow bodiless out of the moist earth. In this work we wanted the red and blue spiral to represent the indefinable thrust of nature giving birth to the cane. It is the force, the invisible catalyst that propels the plant outward to fruition. The spiral is also the sound rising, aroused and pushed, out of the mouths and organs of the fauna. In the winter this spiral reverses and the energy retreats within the earth.
Turned sideways the six black and gold cane stalks is the hexagram, Chien, The Creative, from the I Ching.
This piece has a companion, Canefield, Winter, which is concerned with the final stage of the season.
