Jennifer Hecker

Les Racines et Les Raisons (The Roots and the Reasons)

In designing a work for the Village of Brockport, I wanted to express a feeling of home. I like the fact that the site for the work is a residential street, a neighborhood, surrounded by beautiful, historic homes. Furniture suggests a feeling of home, like your favorite easy chair or perhaps your comfy bed. This sculpture takes its form from a bed, while also functioning as an arbor. I have used the bed as a metaphor in my work before. It refers to the cycle of life, as in a garden bed. Although you can’t lie down in this bed, you can walk through it. The sides of the bed are drawings in steel of plants, with the roots forming the box spring, and the leaves and flowers filling the mattress level. The headboard and footboard are the gates for getting in and out of bed, or in this case, to allow you to pass through it. On the gates, the box spring level is water, referring to the Erie Canal. Water is the source of life, and in this case, it is the origin of the Village as a port on the canal. Water was the unifying theme for the sculpture.

Dimensions
108in x 108in x 42in
Materials
steel