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Sally the Seal was commissioned by the town of New Castle, where it resides near the playground of the Great Island Commons and enjoys the affection of many young visitors.
This work was commissioned by a good friend who has a bird of prey in his business logo. This eagle is carved from a large block of Arundel /Maine granite, approx. 5 ft. tall. The beak and pupils are gold-leafed with 24K outdoor grade gold. It is placed on a tall granite pedestal which will at a later time be integrated into a stone wall
The full title of this piece is ‘Kishelamakank Dreams of the Turtle Hanunah’
According to a native American tradition, the creator of the world, Kishelamakank, was all alone in timeless nothingness. One night he had an exciting and wonderful dream of a world with rivers and mountains, plants and animals, and it was carried by a turtle with the name Hanunah. The next morning, he decided to create this world to keep himself entertained.
In my sculpture the world he dreamed of morphed into a city similar to Portsmouth, with waterfront houses, St. John's church, the Jackson and the Sherbourne houses, and an old chestnut tree.
Sperm Whales have the largest toothed whale and have the largest brain in the animal kingdom. Like bats, they use click sounds for echolocation.
Bronze, 18-1/2 in. long, 15 in. high incl. base stone
This large Right Whale was installed in a park in Burlington in 2024. It measures about 8 ft. long and is carved from a fine-grained black granite, allowing for high contrast in color. The polished surfaces turn dark, and the characteristic rough patches on the head of these whales were hammered with a bushing tool, resulting in a light color, just like it can be seen on a real Right Whale.
Cod fisheries was the first wealth of the coast of New England to be exploited by European settlers. Salt cod was traded all over western Europe from England to Spain, and was also traded in the Caribbean for Molasses - and thus was part of the trade triangle that involved slavery. This sculpture is at display at the Portsmouth Historical Society during the summer of 2024 (and is for sale).
My sculpture ‘Metamorphosis’ is inspired by the renaissance illustrator and entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian who is credited with some of the first depictions of the live stages of butterflies and moths. She is also the first person to link different lepidoptera species to specific food plants. Merian was also a very successful business women who published her own works, and was daring enough to travel on a trade ship to the Dutch colony of Surinam to document the flora and fauna of unknown exotic lands. There she befriended native people who taught her about the local plants and their medicinal uses. She criticized the Dutch colonists for treating the native people badly. Her work was published in German and Dutch.
In the process of Metamorphosis, a wingless, heavy-built herbivore (the caterpillar) changes into a butterfly: lightly built, beautiful, and able to fly. Inside the chrysalis, much of the caterpillars tissues are dissolved, because muscles for creeping and a digestive tract for eating foliage are no longer needed. Instead, the butterfly needs muscles for flight and a proboscis to drink nectar. So the caterpillar changes inside and out. Change requires courage to try something new, and trust that it will be achieved. Without change there is no progress, and the butterfly would never fly!
The caterpillar is part of the Metamorphosis sculpture by Thomas Berger, installed at the Hearth Food Marked in downtown Portsmouth /NH.
The chrysalis is the transitional stage between a caterpillar and a butterfly. On the inside, the complicated process of dissolving and re-building tissues takes place. It is a metaphor for profound change.
The sculptor Thomas Berger is working on the installation of the monumental sculpture Metamorphosis, which consists of a caterpillar, a chrysalis, and a butterfly resting on a stone flower. The writing on the underside of the butterfly wings reads ‘Dare To Change’
Detail of Metamorphosis sculpture by Thomas Berger showing a butterfly egg and the signature of scientific illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian on the underside of a leaf of a stone flower, which serves as the base of a butterfly sculpture
Gold-leaved perforations carry light to the underside of the wings, where patches of gold reveal the words ‘Dare to Change’
Our sculpture Kingdoms in Peace was used for the cover photo of the Flying Horse Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit in S. Hamilton /MA. My friend David Adilman, sculptor from Andover /MA, and I, created this piece in cooperation. Thank you Dave for the good time we had! The exhibit ends November 27th, 2022
We each worked on one stone and then constructed a bridge to connect the two castles
View of the sculpture near the entrance to Pingree School in south Hamilton.
The sculpture ‘Stars and Stripers’ is created in honor of Rachel Carson, who wrote several important books about life in the ocean, before she became known around the world for her book ‘Silent Spring’, which led to the banning of DDT and kicked off the environmental movement.
‘Stars and Stripers’ depicts an Ocean cliff with sea stars, striped bass (locally called ‘stripers’), a few limpets and a periwinkle shell. On the pedestal lies (a stone creation) of the book ‘The Sea around Us’ as if left there by the researcher and writer after a day of observations.
A spider crane was used to set the stone cliff onto its base of polished black granite inside the building
The casting of the 9 stripers in aluminum was done at the Green Foundry in Eliot /Maine.
This image depicts the wax casts before dipping in clay to create the cast molds.
Stripers in the ceramic casting shell, and with the armature to allow metal be poured into the shell
Freshly cast aluminum stripers
The artist used a mix of traditional and modern patinas to create the life-like appearance of a striped bass.
Lift used to reach the ceiling of the foyer to install the nylon cables to hang the striped bass sculptures
View looking down from the raised lift during installation
View to the ceiling of the 3-story foyer
