About this piece

At a party, a friend mentioned he was throwing a gala to raise funds to protect endangered species. As soon as he mentioned the event, imagery began swirling in my mind and I decided to create a piece for auction.

I became fixated on the idea of using a rhino as the central design element of the piece but didn’t have any photos of chrome rhinos in my arsenal. With a wedding to attend a few weeks before the event, I was getting nervous that I wouldn’t be able to finish the piece in time. But as I was doing some window shopping on the morning of the ceremony, I spotted the perfect specimen on a table in the back of one of the darkened closed shops. I couldn’t believe my eyes, a perfect chrome bust of a rhino was right there, just out of reach. I walked back towards the shop a few hours later in hopes that I could pop in to and take a usable photo. I saw something glimmering on the sidewalk in front of the store. The rhino had been placed outside in the sunlight on a pedestal, unobstructed and perfectly lit. My smile would have illuminated the piece on its own.

In this piece, it was important to convey that if we continue to live unsustainably and out of harmony with all of life, we will approach a precipice from which there is no turning back. Life is incredibly resilient yet so fragile, and by continuing to keep our heads in the sand, it won’t be long before the tipping point is reached.