Bill Schuck

“ceres”

1.
ceres began with the excavation of a circular trench 12 feet in diameter; this trench formed a ring around a large circle in the center of the piece. The excavated soil was then graded into 5 different size categories; large stones, cobbles, pebbles, gravel and silt. These were then arranged into five concentric rings within the excavated circle. The smallest material was placed first, into the center, forming a cone of fine soil. Each subsequent ring contained progressively larger grades of earth. After completion, the piece was left on site for as long as the sculpted earth needed to return to its previously undisturbed natural state.

2.
ceres is an earthwork named after the smallest spherical body in our solar system. Five hundred miles wide, Ceres orbits the sun in the asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter.

Because Ceres has enough mass to compress its core, its surface is smooth and round like a planet. It is a charged body; its gravitational force pulls its matter inward changing it from an irregular rock and into a smoothly shaped orb like all the planets and moons in our solar system. Ceres’ self-generated force transformed it from an anonymous asteroid to a dwarf planet with a name and a space in our imaginations.