 I set the door up where I intended it to stand (held in place by a few pieces of clay), closed enough to allow the viewer to take in the skeleton and the box together, but open enough to leave room for the skull. It worked for me. As it turned out, the entire foot didn't quite fit on the door. I decided that the rest of it would be a later addition to the sculpture. Hopefully it will look like it belongs without becoming too much of a distraction. | A Little History I was working on a series of sculptures...works that honored and celebrated the incredible diversity of the United States. (Check into the website at www.feyoungsculpture.com to see the Multicultural Series.) But while I worked on these sculptures, America - my country - began to build a wall to keep people out. In the blink of an eye our country went from "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free" to its very own Berlin Wall. As the daughter of an archeologist whose first love was the Myan culture, and with a B.A. in Mexican Art History, my focus naturally turned to the incredible art forms of the Latin countries. It started with honoring a beautiful Mayan Lintel (Lintel 26 from structure 23 at the Matan site of Yaxchilan, Chiapas) that had meaning to me. These are pictures of the real Lintel 26 and of my interpretation. |
| To the left is the Lintel at Chiapas. To the right is my sculpture. It gave me an opportunity to talk about an issue related to the war in Iraq for which I found I had deep feelings. In the Lintel, Lady Xoc is presenting her husband Shield Jaguar (the ruler) with armor with which to go into battle. I thought of the families sending body armor to their children fighting in Iraq because our government wasn't providing them with proper equipment. It was difficult for me to imagine the pain that would result from this act of preparing a loved one to go into war and the feelings that would stir in that husband or wife, son or daughter, brother or sister who received that gift. | 
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