Earth Tear

Earth tear was made in 1993 while working at the Sanitary Fill Artist-in Residency Program in South San Francisco. The sculpture is made of 250 recycled PET bottles and welded steel.

I washed and soaked the bottles in order to get the old labels off. There were many preliminary drawings and diagrams made before the final design was decided. Bill Wareham helped with the steel armature design and his welding skill was excellent.

At this time I invented a technique of mounting the plastic bottles securely by using pins of welded steel. Later I developed the technique to mount glass bottles to steel. Glass is not flexible like plastic, so it has its unique challenges and beauty.