The Rainforest/Crossroads Series | Rubber Sculptures | 1991

An environment of archetypical sculpture with changing light and sound. 

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In the "Rainforest/Crossroads", I am exploring the path of living in harmony with nature. My round rubber forms represent the eternal female force of the planet which creates and sustains life. I was taken in by the "pele" rubber balls made by independent rubber tappers of the Brazilian rainforest. Their round forms appeared to be fertile in some way. With the backdrop of the awesome rainforest, I sensed a very large God who was not an external being but a oneness that was "All". 

 

Each day, these local inhabitants enter the rainforest, collect the raw rubber and cure it with smoke. The liquid rubber is built up on a rotating stick, a rotisserie of sorts, creating a perfected natural roundness; a new layer of rubber bonds to the prior cured layer of rubber in an endless cyclical process. The finished cured rubber balls, weighing from two to sixty pounds each, are sold to plantations to be destroyed and reprocessed for eventual export. The independent rubber tappers support themselves by safely extracting raw materials from the rainforest, unlike the plantation systems which destroy the natural eco-structure of the rainforest. Therefore, the rubber balls are the ultimate symbol of sustaining the undefiled land while participating in a market system.