Painted welded steel, 12 x 8 x 8, 2005.
Solo is a room for one person. Public space is built for crowds, with sightlines, noise and constant traffic, and almost nothing in it shelters a single person. This sculpture would stand on a street or plaza at twelve feet tall and eight feet across, with a gabled doorway in its front and walls that rise well over a visitor’s head. Inside, the city is cut off at the rim, and the one view left is the sky through the open top. A person could step out of the flow of the street into a smooth, rounded chamber and be alone in it.
The shape does much of the work. The cone narrows toward the floor and opens upward, so the space is tight around the visitor’s feet and wide overhead, the way a cup holds its contents. At the maquette’s twelve inches the form is exactly a cup: a tapered body on a stepped foot with a flared rim. Solo is also the name of the disposable party cup, and disposable cups are among the commonest objects in a street’s litter. At full size that throwaway form becomes the one container in the city that will hold a person for as long as they want to stay.
The booth is also the loudest object in its setting: a single glossy green from base to rim, with a pointed gable framing its door. Its occupant is hidden and the booth is in full view, so solitude is offered in public and advertised there, as a service the city provides. A solo is a performance by one person for others, and a visitor could use the booth that way or use it to get away from everyone.
