When the Seattle Art Museum opened the Olympic Sculpture Park, the site was congested with signs reading DO NOT TOUCH THE ART. The idea being that these sculptures were subject to injury from visitor engagement – even the oil on your fingertips could damage them. Our mechanical soft form sculpture is indeed built upon the armature of a mechanical bull – yes, that Cowgirls Inc, surrounded by a cushion to catch your fall, robot-bull.
We saw this as an excellent foundation to present sculpture that commanded your touch, was not afraid of your grip, and presented sculpture that was more likely to bruise you than be bruised. We’ll see how it goes. California-based fiber artist Stephanie Metz has created a felted wool sculpture that merges high-craft with low-brow entertainment, resulting in a conceptually – driven sculpture that challenges the viewer to reconsider their relationship with sculpture.
Toxic Beauty: Okenia Rosacea Nudibranch is a large-scale rideable version of a bright pink nudibranch (pronounced nude-eh-brank) or sea slug that actually measures only one inch long. Normally found along the California coast, this species is slowly making its way northward as water temperatures rise with global warming. Appearing beautifully hued to our human senses, these colors are a warning to other sea life since nudibranchs sport toxic secretions and stinging cells. ‘Okenia rosacea’ gets its color and poison from its food source, a coral-like pink invertebrate called a bryozoan.
I chose this flamboyantly colorful and exuberantly weird creature for Cannonball Arts for three reasons:
1. it serves as an indicator species for climate change as it generationally works it way North
2. it exemplifies the metaphor “you are what you eat” both literally and figuratively: what you take in is what you put out into the world, for good and bad
3. it embodies the way beauty is open to interpretation: what is a warning to one audience can be a seduction to another
