Ever
1979   100' x 4' x 6'. Steel and salt.
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This piece was installed on Wards Island, New York City, at a location where the land slopes down gently through a stand of trees that allowed the placement of "Ever" along a north-south axis among them, oriented parallel with the East River. Fifty-two thin-walled 2"OD rusting carbon steel tubes were placed vertically in the ground in two rows of twenty-six tubes each at four-foot intervals describing a path sloping southward. At the north end the tops of the tubes were flush with the surface of the ground. As the land sloped downward the tops of the tubes all remained in a level plane so that further down, at the south end the tops of the last tubes measured six feet from the surface. These thin-walled tubes were then filled to overflowing with rock salt, inviting them to rust away, dooming the long-term survival of this stand of steel, while invoking an image of its future in disarray. The initial formality of this installation belies the disorder of this impending transformation. This forest path through a disintegrating steel salt lick invited a rite of routine replenishment of the salt each spring.