2007
Guayacan on white Georgia marble base, on thin oak slab
26"H x 16"W x 9.75" square

In my early teens, my father took me to the oil refineries in southern Iran. What impressed me most was the flame that flared from the ends of those long pipes, lighting the night darkness. In this statue, I have carved a convoluted flame out of Guayacan wood, a wood so ancient as to be almost fossilized - a distant cousin of oil - and set it atop a solid Georgia marble cylinder made by a headstone manufacturer.