Internal Whirlwind / A Spiral Towards Harmony

Sometimes a piece of art understands the artist before the artist understands himself.

I created this sculpture years ago. It came to me as a complex abstract form, born from my own thought processes, loops of worry or obsession that wouldn't release, sometimes for days. Carving it was a way to take that trapped energy and turn it into something physical. Something beautiful.

It's a complex piece. Other artists have looked at it and asked, "How did I get the stone to do that?" They were right to ask. It took patience, precision, and a willingness to wrestle with shape until I finally got it where I wanted it.

Back then, I called it In a Spin. A monument to my own circling mind, frozen mid-motion. I only saw the downward spiral. I only saw the cost.

But art is often smarter than the artist. It holds truths we aren't ready to speak yet.

It wasn't until recently, in the quiet hum of a 4 am morning, that the meaning shifted. I found myself caught in a spin again, this time over a purchase I was excited about. The spiral wasn't pulling me down into dread. It was pushing me up into discovery. The same intensity that usually wrecked me was now fuelling a spark.

In that moment, the sculpture spoke. I'd only ever seen half the shape.

The energy was never the problem. The direction was. The same current that drags you under can lift you up. The same spin that ruins your sleep can ignite you. The turbulence isn't a defect; it's a high-voltage capacity that doesn't know how to be mild. It just is. What I once saw as a spiral into harm, I now see as a spiral towards harmony.

So I renamed it. Internal Whirlwind / A Spiral Towards Harmony.

The piece itself is long gone, but I imagine it placed in water, finally given a reflection. Now, when I look at it, I see both spirals at once: the solid white form reaching up, and its darker, fluid mirror reaching down. Both are real. Both are mine.

This piece is a mirror of the energy itself. And looking at it now, I've simply come to understand it differently, not as something to fear or guard against, but as a current that can move in more than one direction.

The image above is a digitally rendered reflection, imagined in water from the original carving photo, giving the piece the mirror it never had in stone. It may also be the seed of a second sculpture, one carved to mirror itself.