“Earth to Moon”
20’ x 12’ x 12’
Wood, Steel, Aluminum, Mirrored plastic, solar powered light, stone, bronze,
2018
Chadwick Terrace, UVA Arts Grounds, August 31-Sept. 21, 2018
William Bennett

“Earth to Moon” is an interactive sculpture that seeks to make connections between viewer/participants and the larger world through their interaction with the materials, images, and stories embedded in the sculpture.

Belinda Cyckevic Gordon

“This sculpture is part of an ongoing series of sculptures titled “Paris to the Moon”, based on a 19 th century engraving of a train traveling from the Right Bank of Paris, into the sky, on a journey to the Moon. A description of this print introduces a collection of essays of a year in Paris, by the American writer, Adam Gopnik, which he titled “Paris to the Moon.”

James E. Garnett

A circular drum like table anchors this work to the earth. A walkway allows visitors to circle the table. At the center of the table, a curious building on its back floats above the center. A steeple on this building points not to the sky but toward the horizon or toward the viewer/ participant. A smooth stone caps the steeple and acts as a handle allowing viewers to rotate the building. Steel vectors from the base and ridge of the building rise toward the sky. These vectors become a ladder/railroad tracks, inviting a viewer to visually ascend to the crescent moon. The sky ladder is seen against a twilight blue mirror reflecting the image of the viewer. The opposite side of the vectors contains a golden mirror of the rising sun. Rotating the building and sky ladder, allows the viewer and moon to sweep the sky.

Belinda Cyckevic Gordon

As the ladder turns above, a night sky disc turns within the table. This disc contains images of 4 constellations with swaying stars just above the surface. The represented constellations are Pisces, Virgo, Aquarius, and Pegasus. The stars are connected to wood juniper sticks, which create a gentle marimba like sounds as the vectors to the Moon sweep the sky and the night sky disc circles within the table.

Night visitors will see the moon glowing at the top of the ladder and a single star within its crescent shape.
“Earth to Moon” will appear as “Hilton Head to the Moon” in the 2018 Public Art
Exhibition, Hilton Head Island,
October 1 2018- Jan 31 2019.

Special thanks go to Ed Miller, Thomas Hartsell, Charlie Bailey, Victoria Valdes, Dan Weiss, and Chris McDaniel for significant help with this installation.

Les Yeux du Monde Gallery, Charlottesville, Virginia, represents William Bennett’s Scultpure.