Sticks n Stones
Victoria, BC, 2021
“Sticks ‘n’ Stones” is a historic cross section of the stratified landscape supporting the Esquimalt Town Square.
Reinforcing this concept, the parallel layered historic stratum reflects the comprehensive cultural fabric woven by the successive inhabitants preceding us.
The allegorical visual language of the proposed sculptural form is characterized by The Classical Column, with a modest wooden base, a carved glulam rock shaft, a simple wooden capital topped by Corten Steel leaves.
The base is representative of the pre-contact peoples whose flourishing culture nurtured this landscape for 15,000 years since the Bering Lan d Bridge. This is indicative of a truly fundamental foundation for supporting a contextual reference on which our contemporary community continues to evolve.
The carved wooden “Rock” particles echo the aggregate composition narrating the intellectual integration of successive peoples migrating to shape a common land by the historic complexity of the persistent Hand of the Hominoid.
The capital is representative of this landscape we have come to call our contemporary community reflecting both our collective built and unbuilt terrain. Our contemporary landscape is peopled by the most recent descendants of those peoples who traversed southward from the Bering Land Bridge as well as those who have immigrated from all over the world here post-contact.
The sculpturally dominant Corten elements are the three Acer Macrophyllum leaves. Vancouver Island is the northern limit of the Big Leaf Maple range. The leaves are representative of our collective strength, unity and identity as Canadians.
Ecologically leaves contribute to the Rain Forest nutrient base. They also deflect and disperse the potential erosive power of our West Coast rain protecting the integrity of the forest floor. Practically these maple leaves function to protect the sculpture from the direct force of the rain. Allegorically they reinforce the sense of our community strength.
The strength of truth, colouring accurate historic accounts, is mightier than vulgar revisionism.
“Sticks ‘n Stones” will not break my bones.