Rhonda Smith
450 Harrison Avenue, Studio 418
Several changes have influenced my current work . When I moved from a lifetime of painting some years ago to the world of sculpture I became delirious with the variety of materials available; this new path, from flat
to three dimensions, has revitalized my senses. Precision is subjugated to flow. If something doesn’t work it goes on the discard pile and could be rescued later to be absorbed into another piece. Also, during the pandemic I spent a long time in Maine where I renewed the intimate relationship with nature that I had as a child, an essential shift. I have become rather a simpleton with forms, recombining what I see “out there” into presences in the studio. The process of transcription is like looking into that clear pond and acknowledging the dual magic of water as scrim over the objects below and the reflector of the world above. I am realizing that forms are only front- room representatives of what we perceive and that they can hold unseen movements, some of them monumental, some indescribably delicate. How to enfold this? This is the electrifying parallel world, the invisible/visible universe that Rumi felt. How could we not engage?
