Blocks from my house, spanning a long block on Mandela Parkway, is a huge tin-roofed warehouse that houses American Steel Studios , home to a diverse lively community of working artists who work in individual studios vaguely separated from one another in this wide open space by temporary walls or stacks of raw materials. This magnificent convergence of creativity is managed by an artistic genius, sculptor Karen Cusolito who works with fellow artist Dan Das Mann to create the graceful yet determined figures (pictured above) that now inhabit the barren yard next to the warehouse but once served as inanimate players on the desert 'stage' of Burning Man.
Dandelions stand taller than the tallest man with another taller man balanced on invisible shoulders. A gigantic figure sits cross-legged in meditation while another kneels pensively on the dry earth. Lithe women stand with arms spread wide or with backs bent, arms reaching upward and outward, drawing anyone who follows those curves upward into the blue blue sky. These giants spring from the heart and are rooted to the earth by their quiet prayer-like demeanor and their stunning weight. Each graceful figure has been constructed carefully of scrap metal and each weighs tons not pounds. The tallest is 40' tall and weighs 9 tons.
Whenever I pass these figures, which I do almost every day, I am reassured by their steely presence and simultaneously grateful for their ethereal delicacy, reminded of the importance (and the weight) of feeling and inhabiting my humanity . . . . and of the audacity, grace, and wonder that is required to do just that. These towering figures have skeletal structures unconcealed by the wrap of metal bits that serve as skin; the sky bleeds through. Similarly, may the sky breathe through our days. Human life is fragile -- impermanent on this earth -- but remarkable.
I'm glad these steely figures stand nearby as reminders of wonder, imagination, and creativity. Keeps me real . . . and keeps me happy.
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