Friday, September 12, 2008

Ethan Cecchetti: Growth Cycle by Craig Schaffer


This is a welded bronze sculpture created by an artist named Craig Schaffer. The sculpture is called Growth Cycle and it is an extremely interesting piece. I have a very close connection with this particular sculpture because I have met the artist and my parents own the piece which has been sitting in the atrium of our house for many years. The amazing thing about the sculpture is what happens when you look at it from different sides. The two images do a decent job, but they do not do the piece justice.

It is made of circular discs of varying sizes which have been cut into pieces (usually somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 of the circle for the larger piece) and welded together. The large pieces are all in the same side and appear to form something that looks like a curve of slats on one side. However, when you look at the sculpture from the other side, you can see the smaller pieces which are welded in to make something that appears to be a growing spiral.

The piece seems to be indicating that there are different ways to grow and not just one way of looking at things. The spiral is a complex, interwoven pattern of growth going from the small circles on the inside to the large on the outside. The other side, however, appears as a set of growing circles, indicating a sort of tiered expansion. As with much modern art, the interpretation of the piece is left largely up to the viewer, but it is extremely interesting to see the different views at growth and the completely different feeling from opposite sides of the sculpture.

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