Tradition

This sculpture is made out of found materials: metal cover to an electrical box, barbed wire, burlap, house paint, acrylic paint, masking tape, newspaper. The five strands of wire running over the top of the skull echo the common 5-wire fence used in the West to fence out livestock. The law of the West, leftover from the open range days of the big cattle barons, is one must fence livestock out of their property if they don’t want them on their land. This piece speaks about the tough transition traditional ways of life in the West are in right now- both on a personal level and broader social level. And that conflict in itself comprises the history of the West since whites began trying to “settle” it.

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