Passage     2000 - 2001

Friends of Doris McCarthy Commission, Doris McCarthy Trail, Scarborough Bluffs, Lake Ontario, Toronto, ON    
        
Passage is the second in a series of sculpture to mark ‘people and place’ in Canada, through the person of Doris McCarthy and the place of the Scarborough Bluffs. Doris McCarthy is singular in her achievements as an artist and her passion for the geography of Canada, which she has painted from sea to sea to sea. The Scarborough Bluffs are a significant geological formation of the ancient Lake Iroquois. They provide the most complete record of Pleistocene geology in North America.

The form of this corten-steel sculpture is based upon the rib cage of the fish and the ribs of the canoe. Passage links together the idea of a significant passage through life, the passage of the fish through the water that shapes this site, and the silent passage of the canoe, symbol of the exploration of our land. The interior base, upon which the dates are placed, simulates an architectural scale ruler whose stylized end resembles the trillium, provincial flower of Ontario.

Title, Medium and Dimensions

Passage, Corten Steel, 3.7 m h x 9 m length x 1.8 m w