The Ambiguous Family, Part 1

I recently saw 8: The Mormon Proposition and got to thinking about families.  The documentary outlines the Mormon church’s financial and interpersonal mobilization to pass Proposition 8 in California restricting marriage to a man and a woman.

For ten years I taught at various levels from middle school through college, and interacted with hundreds of families.  I’ve seen both successful and utterly dysfunctional traditional families (one mom, one dad, a few kids).  I’ve also seen both very healthy and unhealthy non-traditional families (one mom and a child, or two dads, or a mom and a grandparent, etc).

I certainly don’t know how to measure the success of a family unit, but I can tell it has more to do with the relationship between its members than what gender or age they are.

So, the idea of doing a sculpture that represents a family with ambiguous gender roles was an interesting one.  I especially like the sculptor Cordell Taylor, and was thinking of using a visual vocabulary similar to his use of raw steel and abstracted geometrical shapes.  In it I want to show the family in a posture of protection, like a group of elephants circling their young during an attack.

Some original sketches:

And a few models to get a feeling for the weight and three-dimensional flow.  I personally am leaning toward the tall angular one; it reminds me of the rock art in southern Utah.

Now, to figure out the final material to use.  I’d like it to repurpose something rather than use new concrete or steel or wood.


Cordell Taylor

8: The Mormon Proposition