Girl Buoy
Girl Buoy 1997 22” x 14 x 14 bronze edition of 30 available
The origins of Girl Buoy go back to the sculpture Buoy which had it's origins in the fields of Roberts Island. Phelps correlated the image of a solitary buoy, slowly rocking in a vast body of water, with the solitude of piloting a slowly moving tractor through the fields of the farm.
A few years later with Carrie expecting their daughter Sarah, Phelps saw a different correlation with buoys. He suddenly saw pregnant women everywhere; standing out in crowds, markers in the sea of humanity. He saw a formal correlation between the shapes of pregnant womens bodies and the shapes of the buoys out in the water.
A few years later, with a very pregnant friend willing to model, he sculpted a six foot high, double life size sculpture titled Girl buoy, and a few years after that he created the bronze edition of Girl buoy shown here.