God's Little Joke is the term surgeons have given to the temple (pterion) region of the sides of the human head, the geographic location where 4 separate skull bones meet and fuse in development. This is the thinnest part of the scull, yet underlying it is a major arterial network that can be easily damaged through acts of violence. The tension that is the balancing act between the body's inherent strength and vulnerability always strikes me as profound. This sculpture is posed in a state of surreal sleep, neither alive nor dead but suspended and exposed; an offering. The exquisite branching of the middle meningeal artery on the right side of the head just beneath the surface of the dura mater (thick membrane surrounding the brain) was the conceptual starting point of the sculptural composition; the surrounding anatomy drawing the eye up to the canopy to draw a long breath.
