Sunshaft Stones

The Japanese kanji 間 graphically combines 門 "door" and 日 "sun" to make 間 “Ma.” These principles established the Sunshaft Stone series (1995,) and progressed an impulse to bring light into stone. Research into Scandinavian celestial traditions, combined with an established study of mathematics in nature, led to collaboration with John Stoke, professor of astronomy at University of Colorado Boulder to calculate the position of the sun at various geographic points at significant celestial moments. The results are rectangular cut stones, each pierced by an aperture carved at an angle so that a square of light is cast within the stone’s shadow at noon each solstice or equinox.

The form is not limited to the stone or space within the aperture; it includes the square of light on the ground and its significance to important dates of seasonal transition. If the Stone acts as a projector, and the shape of the light in the Stone's shadow is the image, then the artist's role here is that of interpreter between the elements and humanity, The Sunshaft Stone is a universal symbol; all people have a basic temporal and spatial relationship to the sun - where and when they exist. Indeed, the series is of particular importance in our modern, urban society.