America 250: Freedom, Vision, and Legacy
Celebrating the people, ideas, and ideals that
have shaped 250 years of America
“I wanted to create a sculpture almost anyone, regardless of their background, could look at and instantly recognize that it is about the idea of struggling to break free. This sculpture is about the struggle for achievement of freedom through the creative process”
Freedom Sculpture—Meaning and Inspiration
Although, for me, this feeling arose from a deeply personal experience, I was aware that it reflected a universal desire shared by almost everyone: the need to break free from something—whether an internal struggle or an external obstacle—and to find freedom from it.
Founding Fathers
Another layer of the work is that it functions as a kind of one-man show. I’ve long admired Rodin’s Gates of Hell, and in a similar spirit, I decided to incorporate many individual sculptures into the wall wherever it made conceptual and visual sense.
Like T.S. Eliot and many other artists, I have included deeply personal elements in this piece. My friend Philip, a fellow sculptor who died of AIDS, created a work that I included in Freedom—he often spoke of his wish to see it in a public space, though he did not live to make that happen. My cat, who lived with me for 20 years, as well as my mother, father, and a self-portrait, are all present in the work.
The self-portrait is easily identifiable: a speech balloon emerges from my mouth containing the word “freedom,” written backward—making it clear that the face was sculpted while looking in a mirror. I view the entire wall sculpture as a kind of illusion, much like Alice Through the Looking-Glass—a surreal, reflective world where reality and imagination blend.
Architectural Digest includes the Freedom sculpture in their list of “10 of the Most Interesting Sculptures in the World.”