Soldered brass, 13 x 14 x 9, 2009.
The River City is a river that’s also a city, and it’s built as an animal. It stands on four legs with a round belly, a handle arching over its back and a horn at the front, and it pours water out of itself. On its flank is a small relief of a town, so the city sits on the body of the river it depends on.
The pour is the center of the piece. Water runs from the horn down onto a single leaf laid on the plinth. A horn that gives out water reads as plenty, and the leaf is the first thing the city’s water feeds. A fish rides along the top of the body, the river’s own creature.
The scale is that of a pitcher or a table ornament. A river’s flow gets the form of something you’d lift to pour, and a city gets the dignity of an heirloom. The title and the object say the same thing: the river and the city are one body.
