Installation view. Kathryn Schultz Gallery, Cambridge, MA

The installation assembled four 3-D Prometheus Lights, Pandora Light, a Foot Light, three water-cut aluminum stars from Orion’s Belt, and a circling Crow.

Installation view. Kathryn Schultz Gallery, Cambridge, MA

Prometheus Lights #1, #2, #3, #4 are impressions of sidewalks around the Harvard University Science Center. The intention is to sandwich a layer of art between the upwards energy of the earth and the downwards march of students, scientists and researchers. The light structures are the size of a human torso. The LEDs within the structures represent the human heart and imagination.

The cord of each light plugs into a thin sidewalk facsimile, the Foot Light, enabling viewers to look down into earth’s core and Prometheus' gift of fire.

Surface markings include paint, pastel, paper, stencils.

Light #3’s fabric backing (structural reinforcement) is fringed and dyed.

Pencil-made spirals on Light #4 reveal the forces on the sidewalk’s underside.

The outside surfaces of The Pandora Light are painted with sea creatures; the inside is the microscopic world. In the Greek panoply, Pandora was the first human woman.

The Crow, an omen of change, lives in the void and has no sense of time. Even though an eagle ate Prometheus’s liver, I took artistic license and made a Crow to do the job.

Installation view. Boston East Gallery, MA

Installation of “The Prometheus Lights” at Boston East Gallery, on the waterfront in East Boston.

(Mayor’s Office Photo by Jeremiah Robinson)

My house is up the street from Harvard. Over the years I noticed the cracks, hollows and peculiarities of the sidewalks around the Science Center. I figured influential, thoughtful scientists walked on them, and I wanted to capture and share their steps.

With permission from the City of Cambridge, I cast sections of sidewalks in plaster. I would use the plaster molds as templates.

Using a version of the cartapesta technique I learned in Italy, I pressed paper into the sidewalk mold.

I applied hardening agents to the panels before scoring them and building interior braces to shape the lights.

My house is up the street from Harvard. Over the years I noticed the cracks, hollows and peculiarities of the sidewalks around the Science Center. I figured influential, thoughtful scientists walked on them, and I wanted to capture and share their steps.

With permission from the City of Cambridge, I cast sections of sidewalks in plaster. I would use the plaster molds as templates.

Using a version of the cartapesta technique I learned in Italy, I pressed paper into the sidewalk mold.