Fasces

Fasces

The pencil is the most essential tool in an artist’s studio—the first cut made in graphite. My work nods to the belief that the pen is mightier than the sword, a claim that feels urgent as arts funding and ecological health erode.

I gather these pencils into a bundle of sticks—the fasces—a form that once signified civic authority and was later co-opted by extremist governments, giving us the term “fascism.” In this sculpture, that rigid symbol of control is actively reclaimed by Mother Earth. The wood of the pencils returns to its biological origins, sprouting new vines, leaves, and flowers that envelop and transfigure the bundle.

This image turns from dominion to cultivation, suggesting that the power of the living world is ultimately superior to the structures of forced unity. It offers hope that we might come together as artists to insist that culture begins with a line anyone can make—a line that grows, rather than divides.