Bronze sculpture
31 lbs  
12" x 18": x 10" 
Le Mort deArthur
Every sculpture has a story behind it.
While working on a new sculpture I always have the story in the back of my mind, and that exerts an influence on the finished piece.
As a sculptor, I make many pieces for myself, but I am also often approached to create custom sculptures for other people.
Years ago a client approached me with an idea for a King Arthur theme park incorporating multiple sculpture groups. This was a blast.
While envisioning the various scenes that would be involved and making sketches, all the old stories I had read as a youth began to flood back. The sword and the stone, Arthur and Merlin, the battle with Lancelot, jousting with the black night, and of course… the death of Arthur.
That scene affected me as a child. The mortally wounded King instructing his subject to throw Excalibur into a lake, and being repeatedly disobeyed. The enigmatic ladies of the lake appearing and spiriting Arthur away to vanish in the mist.
This project eventually failed to materialize, but the sketches remained in a folder, and in the back of my mind.
During the lockdown of the pandemic, the death of Arthur resurfaced in my mind. Feelings of mortality, loss, the possible end of a golden age… and being isolated for an extended time, all culminated in the creation of this sculpture.
Arthur, the seemingly invincible knight in shining armor, who ushered in an Age of
Enlightenment, chivalry, and reason, laid low. And with the removal of this pivotal figure, the nascent burgeoning light of civilization snuffed out, a dark age falling over the world for a thousand years.
The lockdown felt that way at times.
Arthur was originally intended to be 7 to 9 feet tall, but I condensed the concept down into a manageable table-top size. It was a size I could afford to cast, but there was a question as whether the capability would remain to cast it. In those first few weeks of the pandemic, no one knew how widespread the disaster might be."
I remember working feverishly on this piece, as if it might be the last sculpture I would ever make. Every skill I have acquired over decades of experience was poured into it. I remember the doubt of the faces of the foundry metal workers when I showed them the drawings of the sword locking mechanism, and how happy they were when it actually worked.
Turns out, most of us lived, and the world returned somewhat to normal. I have made more sculptures since. But there is a certain level of tension and loss that exists in Le Mort deArthur, because of the circumstances of its creation, that I believe comes through in the work.