Submission

Wild cherry. 1982. 17 1/2″ Private Collection.

 

Submission still had one green leaf when I started carving it in freshly cut wild cherry firewood.  I imagined my father’s face while I carved.  The title refers to the commitment I made that week, 20 years before I retired as a scientist and educator, to ‘behave as if sculpting were my life’s work’.  The sculpture and the sculpting celebrate the power of my submission to that commitment.   For the story of the commitment and its influence on my life since, read Birth of a Sculptor.

Submission was inspired by a maple sculpture by Richard Carl Urso in Design Book Two, by Taunton Press.

Photo by Ulli Steltzer

Contact Lee Gass