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Sculpture by Gerola
Across Mineral Spring Avenue from the Lorraine Mills stands a complex of nondescript Civil War brick. The parking lot expands behind into a veritable menagerie of giant abstract creatures sculpted in massive plate steel outside the industrial studio of Donald Gerola.
Don's pieces range from intimate atrium accents to monumental monsters upward of 40 feet. The bigger ones move, prodded by breezes into gentle acrobatics, depending upon the size of the moving element. Giant rotors gracefully pivot, pinwheels twirl, weather vanes steer windward, and massive arcs waver almost imperceptibly. Their motions are asynchronous, each part doing its own thing, like cats or people. This may not seem so impressive until you consider that one rotor weighs as much as a small car with a skinny passenger. You can only estimate the overall weight in tonnage.
Ordinarily, sculpture is about stasis, form gracefully occupying a single space over time. All of Gerola's work is about movement. Movement fascinates. People pay hundreds to watch athletes run or cars race, pay thousands to race themselves and watch scenery flash by. Even in his static sculptures there's a sense of flow, rhythm, struggle, twist and turn; they seem to sprout from the very ground and reach toward heaven. The kinetic pieces play in the wind. Elementals are always represented, whether the metal itself, formed in fire, or its reaction to wind and water, or set on stones or timbers or next to tree lines. Encouraged to rust though initial chemical treatment then left to oxidize, they form a unique patina reminiscent of rust belt rejects or steel yard wrecks, so South side exposure to direct sunlight looks different than North side. Consequently, they present a unique appearance every time you see them, never quite the same, possessing an amorphous quality. Some even flash lasers, shoot flames or spray fluids. This reminds people that they too are part of nature, made of air, sunlight, stone and water.
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