Selected Sculptural Works
Tuned Leaf-Tailed Rubicond Tiité © 1981
Urban Environment
Painted steel, on concrete foundations 26' tall. Located on the grounds of the Cape Coral Arts Studio, this environment provided sanctuary to a number of relocated trees that would have been cut down to make room for new construction. Even though the site was active for 21 years, the environment was not completed until November 30, 2002 with the official resolution designating the site as Rubicond park. This urban environment became the first work of public art in the City of Cape Coral, Florida in 1981. and now is the site of WPMP's first Point of Peace in the world.
In 1981, on the grounds adjacent to the Cape Coral Art Studio, I unveiled an "Urban Environment*" with a centerpiece work of sculpture entitled “Twin Leaf Tail Rubicond.” This work responded to several leading issues concerning the general environment, critical new advances in science and technology, which I saw as the triumph of civilization over the natural world and at the same time as a great threat to life inside and outside of our greatest creation; civilization.
There was the issue of development and progress of new urban habitats and the displacement of life forms in the wake of such progress. My urban environment provided home for a number of sea gapes and other native plants while it also rescued six Saw Palms, three Washingtonian Palms and two Gumbo Limbos trees that would have been destroyed to make way for a development.
There was the issue of genetic engineering and the brave new world ahead, with life manipulated and designed by us humans. I must point out that my comments where fully nine years before the start of the Human Genome Project in 1990 and twenty two years before the publication of the genetic human sequence in 2003.
There was also the issue of vigilance regarding such power in the hands of a human culture that in the eve of its greatest triumph was also becoming painfully aware that civilization with all of its advances and technology was no longer sustainable either practically or morally. As represented by the rapid consumption of natural resources, the impact of civilization on the natural environment and the disproportional and pervasive gap between rich and poor.
The comment of my work was not, for or against the current of progress, but rather to sponsor a view that our species had come too far in its accomplishments to just vanish in a puff of nuclear dust or come to an end in a desolate and lifeless planet of our own design.
“Twin Leaf Tail Rubicond” or the Rubicond as it is known today, was therefore a neo-mythical creature presented as a messenger of culture, the message as I declared at the unveiling in 1981 was not quite clear to me, however, I promised to return when it was.
The structure of the work, however, encoded much of the message and it read something like this:
The word “Rubicond” identifies the creature but also mirrored the critical nature of our decision to unravel the genetic make up of life to another historical instance of irrevocable nature as in the crossing of the “Rubicon” River by Julius Caesar in 0049 as a point of no return.
The “Twin Leaf” makes reference to the duality of human-made nature and nature’s own design both of which are now in charge of life on earth.
The Rubicond was built to contain the notion that natural and human design can be made compatible against the larger framework of reference of spacetime, hence its four legs representing the four dimensional manifold of spacetime and its wings symbolic of flight in universal and conscious space. Of course the head and antennae bespeak of information being received and carried as a messenger, the mystery is, where the message is coming from.
It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the reader that this is art and that its proximity to reality is due to the fact that the object of my work has been to eliminate the so called gap between art and life.
The message itself, however, is simple but not readily accessible, thus the need for the WPMP to make the maiden voyage and generate a model of the message at the largest possible scale that the whole of humanity could experience. Even then, it will be seen as an aesthetic experience although the gap between art and life will be conspicuous by its absence.
Homage to the Orange River Valley Tiité © 1983
Aluminum flat plate on wood pilings with solar powered night illumination.
18' High x 26' Wide.
Installation
Commonly known as the Manatee Monument, this 1983 sculpture was dedicated to the life and work of Dr. Jesse R. White, a pioneer of manatee physiology and captive breeding methodology.
1983 – “Homage to the Orange river Valley” known as The Manatee Monument, was contemporaneous with “surrounded Islands” the environmental work of artists Christo and Jeanne- Claude. Homage to the Orange river Valley is a permanent sculpture that explores the seamlessness of the four-dimensional work of art in its interaction with natural and conscious environments in situ at a wildlife refuge.
My Refuge Tiité © 1999
Aluminum, 9' 6" (h) x 5' 10" (w), with a brushed surface finish and a clear powder-coating gloss finish. One-of-a-kind original completed in 1999. On view at courtyard of the Saint Andrew Catholic School in Cape Coral, Florida.
Conscious environment
The name My Refuge was inspired during a visit by Tiité to Guatemala in 1997 for the filming of the documentary Children of the Fourth World by filmmaker John Biffar. The story features the work of Kari Engen whose undertaking of the education of the children who live at the garbage dump there, inspired the founding of a mission she calls Mi Refugio (My Refuge).
This work was meant to record the transition between the millenniums and amplify the symbolism. To that effect I added to the cross two elements or ‘time capsules’ near the base —one for each millennium of Christianity that has elapsed. Each symbolically contains its own history, thus allowing the pure idea of the undiscovered Christ to emerge freely into the third millennium —fresh, simple and beautiful.