Severance Center Installation. Cleveland OH
To celebrate the Arts in Cleveland Heights, OH a call for artists went out for installing outdoor works of art in the Severance Center area.  I was one of eight selected and the only artist whose project was on display for the two year span. 

Sacred Space, Earthen columns Earthen containers.
Picture

Theme and Premise 

I chose an open, pedestrian area along the very edge of the selected art exhibition space.  My theme and premise is that all land is sacred. As Native Americans believe, where we are, where we walk we are in a sacred space. I created five totems representing the 5 geographic areas in the world. In each totem was placed a canvas bag fashioned in the form of a human being. Each bag was filled with soil and seeds. Since the entire work of art was to remain on site for two years I planed on three distinct phases: Installation; Evolution, Containment and Decay; Flowering, Growth and Release. The images here illustrate these 3 phases.  

Constant Cycle

The idea behind the installation, which would remain in place for two years, was to set aside six small circles of land and place six large containers made of cotton that measured 5 feet and  8 inches high by 42" in circumference, which just happen to be my own personal measurements. One "body bag" was placed inside each  of  the wooden totem structures. As the body bags disappeared  I returned to put a ring of wooden posts around the seed mounds to keep the sacred six foot section of soil away from us and remain untouched, to keep us out, but more importantly to keep nature in and to allow the natural progression of Mother Earth to erase our control.
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