stoneware pieces painted with powdered graphite.driftwood stick. floor painted with graphite in dimensions of train track.
This sculpture was made for a group show “Holding What Can’t Be Held” which is looking at the history of Nuclear Waste containment in Idaho. My piece responds to a historic moment, a confrontation on train tracks between the Shoshone-Bannock tribal police and Department of Energy trains that were transporting loads of radioactive waste through the reservation without permission or compensation to the tribes.
The early title of this piece was “Ghost train with Eons on Either Side” - but I changed the title of it during the installation process, because I was confronted by the issue of the graphite on the floor becoming an agential material itself- it created a slick surface that required constant remindersfor people not to touch. This name change to “no step, delicate” reflects the fact that the scultpure itself began to work like something that was dangerous, messy, and hard to see- like nuclear waste.
