Submitted by Jim Huntington:
On Friday Feb 15,2014 a sculpture that had stood in the sculpture garden for 7 years, was attacked by testosterone poisoned, alcohol fueled feral punks, doing their white trash version of the knockout game. They left behind little evidence save empty beer can and bottle and the destroyed sculpture. The sculpture was titled “Hiromi, Mon Amour” a takeoff on a 60s film title and dedicated to Hiromi Uehara, a brilliant young Japanese pianist. One of the stones was anchored on a stainless anchor pin, like most of my vertical pieces and the other one was nested against it, with no anchor pin (my mistake). However, it took purposeful malevolent intent and work to knock it over and it broke when it hit the ground.
Of course it was heartbreaking to see one of my favorite pieces destroyed by miscreants, living a pathetic mutated existence at the expense of others but I strive to learn from mistakes and vicissitudes of life.
Refusing to be bowed by these maggots, I set about to reclaim and transform it into a horizontal piece and worked on it for several weeks. The new incarnation is titled “Broken Not Beaten”. I have always felt that my work has a life of its own and that I am merely the messenger, so I deal with what is given.
Of course, I hope for posterity’s sake that all the work I have at Huntington Sculpture Foundation survives me but the level of cultural insouciance, intellectual dissolution and moral degeneracy permeating society in general, leaves me to wonder about the fate of my life’s work. There is little I can do but make my sculpture and, as I always have, leave it in God’s hands.
