The Pit Series explores life’s unanswerable and seemingly unfair outcomes – those conditions that remain unchanged despite reason, determination, or effort. Embedded within these constructions are opposing forces that shape human experience: light and darkness, good and evil, fact and myth. The works examine questions of legacy, fate, and predetermination, particularly as they relate to health, misfortune, and unexpected blessings.

The drawing studies for the dyed, handmade paper elements have been completed.

The following works in the Pit Series have already been constructed:

1st Level of the 1st Pit: The delicacy of value scaled personal papers and the fragile nature of plants are pressed between the symbolic messages implied by a flower press. The doors display various questioning passages from the book of Job.

13th Level of the 60th Pit: The multi-cavities and layered spaces call to mind upward mobility or downward fall. The surface recalls groveling in the mud, or climbing a rocky surface. There are wash tubs along the ascent and descent that function as containers or cleansers. Columns are a reminder that is a classic paradox of questioning whether success or failure has been achieved.

13th Level of the 13th Pit: This sculpture gives a feeling of the presence of a loving family conversing in their living room over a coffee table where many secrets are exposed and sanitized. The underlying reality is too shocking, embarrassing or hurtful to be told truthfully in any other setting. The results are skewed family histories told as oral traditions and heard as heartfelt truths.

Other constructions are planned akin to these that also package universal power struggles, conceal plights, and are presented as deceptively shallow but are, in fact, questioning situations that have no answers.