Description
Jon DeCelles sculpture, “Spirit of the Permian Era”
The main figure stands 67” tall on a base measuring 6 ½” X 12” X 12”, reaching an overall height of 74” (6’ 2”).
The Permian Period ran from 299 to 250 million years ago. It ended with a great cataclysm some attribute to volcanoes’. The seas became stagnant, the air temperature shot up; rain became acid and the rich and diverse ecosystems of the Permian world collapsed. In the sea and on land, most living species were wiped out forever extinct. Trilobites vanished after 300 million years on earth! This was the largest die off of life in recorded history. It took more than 300 million years for life on earth to recover.
The Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas and Southern New Mexico, where this stone was quarried, were underwater and part of a flourishing reef that stretched about 400 miles around the edge of a long vanished sea. Today there are mountains of this fine-grained, sedimentary limestone comprised of the accumulated minute and tender animals that are now compressed and fossilized.
This stone is the color of beach sand. It is concrete like with a homogenous color and texture. On the exposed surface, it has a seemingly uniform grain size with millions of flecks of black and white “shell” fragments. Jon’s sculpture is a two-piece construction. The entire sculpture is set upon a turnstile swivel affording movement for viewing preference and to capture different lighting moods, shadows, and the figure itself.
Inspired by his Native American heritage and reflecting his musical talent, Jon blends themes of rhythmic lines with the flowing feel of water and wind. The curvilinear, slender elegance, suggests a statuesque female form, peering over her left shoulder, past her hip into the void of eternity.
