DAY 5-PHASE ONE IS DONE!

 “Aeneas went down into the underworld, crossed the dreadful river of the dead, threw a sop to the three-headed watchdog Cerberus, and conversed, at last, with the shade of his dead father.” -Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p.30 describing an episode from Virgil’s epic The Aeneid.

48" deep–phase one of the hole project is complete

 DAY 5: High 70’s, hazy.

The first hole is finished– 42” wide X 48” deep. I’m pretty proud to be sitting on the rim with my feet dangling down into the four foot depth. I yanked out dirt, rocks, coal, machine parts, and slabs of discarded marble. 

Rocks and marble slabs that came out of the hole

Part Two of the project will be digging a 12” diameter hole from the center of the floor of the four foot hole, down the length of my arm...about three more feet deep. This small shaft will be the space for a hand-hewn ladder to rise out of. Three more weeks left before the reception!

 

Thoughts: A year and a half ago I first planned a hole-dig as a daily silent performance... “a hero’s journey” as Joseph Campbell describes the typical struggle by a mythic character who undergoes trials along the path to transformation, and who returns to the visible world to share the enlightenment. Often the hero goes underground or underwater to face death. I wanted to dig down, sit inside the well-like space and ask my deceased mother the nature of death. Even though this well I’m digging fits the theme of SculpFest 2012, “Keep On Keeping On”, I also perceive this work as a performative, symbolic, existential inquiry.

Finally, here are three drawings of fanciful multi-holes. (I'm going to sleep "well" tonight!)

Black Holes

 

Interconnected Black Holes

Ant Holes