Maya II
Concrete, 11' x 10' x 2'Jon Mehlferber, Bristol, VA
Sculpture in the form of a dwelling or house has some ten thousand years or more of tradition. Human beings tend to use the dwelling symbolically, as an expression of their desire to create a realm of order within the chaos of the world. Carl Jung's concepts of the collective unconscious and the archetype account for the almost universal occurrence and symbolic significance of the dwelling. All the various representations of the dwelling motif are archetypal symbols-symbols of the archetypes corresponding to the need for spatial order and protective shelter, which Jung calls the "mother" and the "self." In Jung's thought, the mother archetype is associated not only with the "good" qualities of protection, nurturing, and growth, but also with "evil" qualities, like secrecy, darkness, and suffocation (overprotection). The archetype of the self is the archetype of order and wholeness. In this context, the arrangement of concrete blocks that make up this work are not neutral geometric shapes, but protective containers, just as the walls of a house are protective or exclusive boundaries.