Prometheus in Relief
This relief was sculpted with thick paint and glaze drawing together my contribution to John Dewey's reconstruction of philosophy. The artifact is based on an ancient Greek statue (the Lacoon) which kernalized the human condition in a nutshell: struggling in agony against that old "serpent of Genesis" peddling the forbidden fruit of language.
Moreover, we are saddled with twin personalities (the fledglings at each knee); remarkably anticipating Freud's trinity (id, ego and superego). The twins use language to compete with each other for domination of the whole animal's consciousness.
The main theme of Greek mythology (as analyzed gorgeously in Nietzsche's BIRTH OF TRAGEDY) is that the animal will mature enough to make internal peace and integrate the split personalities into a single individual.
Accordingly the liberty was taken, with the old statue, of portraying the moment when the serpent has been shredded enough to release a freshly created human individual into the expanded consciousness of an adult. I also have superimposed (upon this sculpture-of-sculpture) the archetypal mythology of Prometheus -- who defied Olympus for the right to be free.
Last Dance
(On pioneer farm south of Strafford)
For comic relief, it might be observed that he's like Rodin's THINKER: relieving himself in another sense. However he's carved up though, this is the key to implementing Plato's Republic on earth: the individual citizen. A philosopher-king (or queen) of oneself.
Like Zorba. And Walt Whitman, who celebrated himself as "one of the roughs...an American."
Stone County, MO,
September 30, 2000
Waiting
for the Seventh Man
(The recurring dream of a warrior friend)
