The Five Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle!

What does this slogan of sustainability have to do with the life of a terminal cancer patient who is a sculptor?  Not much. Except for one of those words - REPURPOSE.  I’m referring to the practice of repurposing marble or marble sculptures.

What does marble or marble sculpture have to do with cancer? Nothing. Except when the sculptor has a beautiful piece of unfinished stone sculpture; suddenly gifted a burst of energy during that strange stage of cancer referred to as “limbo”, when no signs of cancer are felt, and life is good.

To repurpose the unfinished sculpture in question, the 10 foot long piece of beautiful Lasa Italian white marble was cut into manageable pieces. This almost seemed an act of ‘vandalism’!  - an act resisted for more than 20 years in which time that large, unmanageable piece had been schlepped around, from studio to studio, in the belief that the original design would justifiably be finish one day. But, it didn’t happen.

After a terminal cancer diagnosis, some things, ideas, and even people must be let go. That can be a hard decision to come by. But to REFUSE old ideas can be liberating. To REDUCE a big thing to a smaller, manageable item, can lead to renewed creativity. To REUSE a creative moment in time, long past, is a bit like a life in RECYCLE mode. But it is, nonetheless, a life.

The two pieces of marble, repurposed from that larger stone, have resulted in two new sculptures. Each is a truncated female torso: TORSO I and TORSO II.  Somehow, those two partial figures, presented with slashes and distortions on their surfaces, remain beautiful .

In a roundabout way, they exist because of those Five Rs mentioned earlier, which can be the means of sustaining all life.

Later, TJ