Diatom
Hand-carved pine, welded-steel, plexiglass, latex, rope, limestone, wood stain, and limestone dust
4 ft x 1.5 ft x 1.5 ft
The top form of the sculpture is a piece of pine, hand-carved to look like an enlarged diatom. Diatom are beautiful siliceous phytoplankton and are the beginning of the food chain in the ocean. Like snowflakes, no two diatom look exactly the same. The sculpture also references a water lily, with the diatom as the pad floating on the surface of the pond. A root-like structure connecting the water lily to the earth is represented by a piece of limestone which itself contains ancient fossilized diatoms.