I have always been interested in using found materials to make architectural expressions—whether it’s String Thing or a temporary Floating Sculpture.

My spandex fabric installations began in 1999 when a proposal I made was accepted into an environmental arts exhibition at the Fuller Museum in Brockton, MA. The exhibition was sited around the wooded grounds of the museum and the particular spot I chose contained large boulders and tall trees which were ideally placed to serve as inspiration for a mammoth scale slingshot aimed at the museum and titled, “The Museum Besieged.”

Dancer Deanna Pellachia performs with Stretch : Hook, an installation at the HyArts Guyer Barn in Hyannis, Mass. September 2012.

Upon receiving the commission, the dilemma was to create the illusion of the extreme tension of a slingshot ready to shoot. The solution was to use spandex. The material was quite interesting to work with and led me to use it in other installations involving trees and spandex.

All succeeding installations were abstractions which featured the numerous attributes of the materials. I began to bury the end edges of the material under the surface of the forest floor which gave the illusion of a continuous run of the fabric underground, then up into the trees, then back down underground.

“Gravity Revealed” was the last large installation I did outdoors in 2005 at the Heritage Gardens and Museums in Sandwich, MA. Nearly a half acre was covered by installations that were at once transparent, translucent, kinetic, reflective, tactile and illusory.

The last one I did was in August of 2012, entitled Yellow Stretch/Red Hook at the HyArts Center’s Guyer Barn in Hyannis, MA. As the installations are by nature, temporary, I had the idea to enlist a dancer to dismantle the work, the results of which can be seen here.