Utopia/Dystopia
Byrdcliff Invitational Sculpture Exhibition, 2000

Hadrian's Way or Lost in the Garden, a site-specific installation, was installed over the course of the summer of 2000 in Woodstock, New York.

Hadrian, the Roman philosopher emperor, whose great love of stone, as exemplified by his stonewalls in Scotland, was the inspiration for this piece.

The baths at Hadrian's villa in Tivoli, Italy, provided the rectangular framework for the work. The town of Tivoli, New York is a few miles from the site.

The simple familiar rectangular foundation mirrors that of the emperor's pools. Hay bales, a material that both mimics and pays tribute to cut stone, used because of its impermanence, was meant to deconstruct by the end of the exhibition; a nod to the cyclic necessity of life and death.

Hay is a ubiquitous material used by farmers and breeders everywhere. I am fascinated by the ingenious way in which farmers, throughout the world, stack hay in a variety of architectonic styles.

The entire piece was situated in a field of hay. A path, ten feet from its foundation walls, mowed throughout the duration of the exhibition, controlled the viewer's movements. The grass added to the sense of the work falling into ruin.

Hadrian's Way or Lost in the Garden, dissected by openings at either end of its short walls, invited the viewer to enter its inner sanctum where a camouflaged cement cast statue of Michelangelo's David awaited.

David, with sling shot at the ready, confused the viewer. Was he there to invite or deter the viewer from entering? Once within its walls, the viewer, upon careful observation, noticed, that tucked in each corner were replicas of Roman urns, camouflaged as hay.

The piece is about information and the phenomenon of entering the inner circle as a means of climbing the social, political ladder. The problem we face, once we think we're safely inside, is that we cannot decipher the information contained therein. Confused, we continue our search for meaning and status, conditions that are as impermanent as the structure itself.