Grubb Installs “Voyager” Sculpture on Barton’s Campus

Time Lapse of the Installation

 

Raising “Voyager”

 

North Carolina artist Tom Grubb, assisted by Barton faculty and students, installed “Voyager,” a sculpture composed of bamboo and colored rope, on Barton College’s east campus on Sept. 19.

Grubb has been a professional artist installing monumental site-specific sculptures in the United States and abroad since 1980. He was the executive director of the Fayetteville Museum of Art from 1990 through 2010, and, prior to that appointment, he was the interim director and artist-in-residence at the Museum. He funded his studies in graduate school by working on ships in the North Atlantic Ocean as a crewman and eventually as captain. His education includes Bachelor of Science degrees in Political Science and History from Appalachian State University, 1970, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from East Carolina University in 1983.

Grubb’s ephemeral site-specific sculptures are fabricated from bamboo and rope and are aligned with objects off earth (i.e. the moon, sun, stars, constellations, etc.). Over a period of time the viewer can see the bamboo age and turn gold in color and eventually brown. The primary colors of the rope optically mix in the wind, and the spectator can see secondary colors of pink, purple, orange, etc. Throughout history, bamboo has represented man, bending in the wind and always springing back after adversity. With the ephemeral site-specific sculptures, he uses primitive materials to explore sophisticated space.

To create such sculptures, Grubb combines elements found in physics, astronomy, navigation, and sacred geometry. He believes that the arts and sciences are closely connected to the health of the human spirit. Grubb creates these works of art that are part ancient, part futuristic, and part spiritual to inspire the viewer to consider the unlimited possibilities of exploring earth and the universe, and protecting our natural resources.