Having a Point

There is a wonderful children’s story called “Oblio and the Land of Point”. It’s a story about

a place where everything, and everybody, had a point.

This beautiful shell came to a point so I named it “Oblio”. The difficulty was with mounting it.

I had to drill through the shell and have it hang straight. Nature seems to prefer organic shapes rather than straight lines but the contrast of straight forms juxtaposed with natural ones work so well to show both the beauty of nature and the elegance of geometry. There is another kind of geometry that can explain the shapes found in nature — from a leaf to the shape of clouds but that is very different than the geometry that we are all familiar with.

I am still wondering whether or not to frame this piece. On one hand, there are enough frame-like elements to this work that adding another frame seems unnecessary. On the other, a frame does finish off a Foundling in a way that makes the work so much more formal, so much more elegant — and I guess that’s another good point.

Oblio

7" x 8" x 3"