The descending figures of LANDING hope to illustrate the incremental progression from mental illness towards functioning life. On this journey ways of coping can become a crippling burden that must be abandoned. These avoidances, and the isolation they can engender, cripple us.
The process of learning to assess and engage honestly with our gifts and limitations relates to the concept of “grounding”. For we are each a being who desires to grow, thrive, and to build connection through practical engagement with the physical world. The glass panels anchoring the sculpture represent the backbeat of our unconscious and habits of thought that support or hamper our evolving lives.
The upper figure is masked and shrouded with a barrier of wings. She huddles within a ring, wrapped in bandage-like garments, paralyzed and suspended in a limbo of isolation. The middle figure explodes from retreat to panic, battering the glass in a ricochet of ineffective action. Abandoning this fruitless effort, the last small figure glides earthwards seeking a new way; a landing. Her mask fallen away and new growth peaking between her unraveling garments. Looking down, she leans into what will come.
The large figure is planted, standing on ground furrowed from tilling and dotted with sprouts. Open handed, bedecked with vines and blossoms in a riot of texture, her internal garden. Once vital, the wings of retreat are dropped behind, no longer useful.
