Accordingly, Giant's Playground resulted from his need to work through the emotional trauma of one of the school massacres that have become so horribly frequent in the past few years, exhibiting both the artist and the therapist in himself. Ed Oates is a shaman. He says so himself. He daily enters a trance state, far deeper than a daydream if I understand him correctly. He has been a painter but is now primarily a sculptor.
Photos courtesy the artist.
I must admit that of all the works in this wonderful show, Fossil Shaman is the one I covet most. The image here does not show the work to even a modicum of justice. The catalog says it is made of polyadam hydrocal and found objects. The shaman side of the sculpture has embedded in it, at the place the heart might be in the torso, a geode of amethyst crystals. Not all rocks are geodes.