• created 2021
• nootka sound marble
• 8” H x 22” W x 12” D (20cm H x 56cm W x 31cm D)
• $3,750.00
• Award Winner - Federation of Canadian Artists

This abstract form is an enlarged version of a small sculpture I carved many years ago from a scrap piece of rainforest marble. The underside of the sculpture is an arched negative space and the piece balances on two curved knife edges. Thus, the sculpture rocks gently, giving it a kinetic quality. The upper surfaces are alternately flat and gently curving, with long, sweeping edges. These create wonderful shadows, and with the smooth matte finish, are exquisite to touch.

This variety of marble was quarried at Nootka Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, BC, Canada and is characterized by its dove grey colour with striations of white and black. This particular piece exhibits a spectacular array of colours and patterns that makes me think of ocean waves or photographs of deep space. On the one hand, the pattern on the top looks like breaking surf on a beach. On the other, the grey pattern on the large vertical side looks like stars in the night sky. I feel the sculpture looks like an alien spacecraft and this inspired the title “Aphelion.”

Aphelion is the furtherest point of an object’s orbit around another object – ie. the Earth traveling endlessly around the Sun. Is this abstract an object that travels around another object? Is the act of running one’s fingers around the sculpture edges like tracing an orbit’s path, and passing around the aphelion?