­­­­­­­About the Mud Daubers Nests

1999

For years I have been strangely compelled by the cells, nests really, of mud dauber wasps.  I have collected a number of them from near my home and have turned them over in my hands many times.  In fact, I have felt that I could get my hands around them easily, but not my mind. It was only after reading and rereading the poetry of Mary Oliver that I began to get a glimpse of where these tiny structures might lead me. I slowly began to realize that human perception, especially as related to pace, place and quality of absorption, was entirely significant to me. This sculpture has been generated by amplifying, intensifying and abstracting ordinary phenomena, things there for everyone to see, but so woven into the fabric of the everyday that they are not usually noticed, like the mud dauber cells.