The sculptures included in this section are part of an ongoing project for the garden my wife Asterie Baker Provenzo and I have been creating at our home in Staunton, Virginia.
Each piece includes a reflecting garden or gazing ball. Reflecting balls of this type evidently date back to 13th century where they were blown out glass by Venetian craftsmen.
I was intrigued in using gazing balls for a number of reasons. For example, besides extending (literally doubling) one’s vision of the garden, they force one to reflect on oneself, as well as on the closed space within the reflected image of the gazing ball. In addition, they provide a unifying element between each ball that has been placed in the garden.
At the present time three sculptures have been completed and installed.
The photograph at the top of the page is called “Hegel’s Dialectic.,” demonstrates the principle of the German philosopher Georg Frederich Hegel (1770–1831) that thesis versus antithesis yields synthesis. In other words, that when two opposites come together a synthesis occurs. Thus when a sphere is merged with a cube of equal size a synthesis comes about in the form of a cylinder–the cylinder having a round (sphere) and a flat (cube) surface. This idea is demonstrated with the scupture included at the top of the page.
