ROWING #4, 2000

There are several sources that congealed as impetus for this piece; a commission for Mr. Raymond Garcia. In the year previous to its execution, while fishing, I found two “boats” – actually carved, woody melon halves filled with candy, money, votive cards all seized by spent candle wax that had apparently been sent off as offering (see Maybe Now). This piece, along with “INSHORE” 2008, is an offshoot of that discovery. Though the process of finding curved wood with which to construct a boat leaves much to chance with regard to design, the shape of the boat recalls an old, beached Pirogue I encountered while in residence along the South Shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, in 1995. However, this piece is dedicated to Anne Sexton’s seminal volume of poetry, “The Awful Rowing To God”. It seems that I have been constructing hulls for refugees. The objective not being a destination per se, just a vehicular tool to get ‘away’. Sexton, we know, was pre-emptive in that regard.