Another Memorial Sculpture

In Dec. 2010, I was approached by a woman who had lost her husband to cancer earlier that summer. She asked me to create a sculpture to remember her husband and that she could place in her garden where the two had said goodbye to each other.

After I presented several designs to her over a period of three months, she finally chose a stylized heart composition. The two halves of the heart represent she and her husband. She wanted the larger side of the heart shape to represent him as the overseeing protector. The hole symbolizes that he is gone from the physical world, but it is an egg shape to symbolize a new beginning for her. The smaller side represents her and as her profession is a Couturière, she is surrounded by forms that represent drapery or fabric, the material of her craft.

She chose to have the sculpture carved from henna limestone, which is quarried in Manitoba, Canada. This variety of limestone has caramel coloured fossilized seashell shards in a background of burgundy red. One side of this sculpture shows a good example of this, the other side is a mostly yellow gold limestone. The husband was a geologist, and the visible history of ancient life arrested in stone, along with the colours are what drew the patron to choose this material.

She had designed her garden in a spiral form, with flower beds and a paved patio emanating from a centre point, and she decided to locate the sculpture on a low basalt pedestal here.

To see a close up picture of the fossils, click here to see a previous post.