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St. Louie Bones

By Robert Stackhouse
Category: Sculpture

About

Seventy feet long, thirteen feet wide and following the contours of an uneven slope in Laumeier’s Way Field, Robert Stackhouse’sSt. Louie Bones creates a rippling silhouette on the Park’s landscape. Conceptually modeled by the presence of our two powerful waterways, St. Louie Bones is a wooden structure with many historical associations. St. Louie Bones may look like a boat turned minimalist sculpture, but it also suggests a stage of primitive ritual. Resembling a rickety raft boat, St. Louis Bonesrecalls those who live by and travel the river: from native tribes in canoes, the European immigrants who landed via steamboats, to the river pilots that keep the local economy flowing. Like a ship tipping into a wave, idea and form are linked in a visual metaphor: this sculpture presentsa platform to express a literal, imaginary or spiritual voyage.

Courtesy of Laumeier Sculpture Park.

Dimensions: 4′ x 70′ x 13′
Year Completed: 1987
Material: Pine timbers, white stain
Donor: Laumeier Sculpture Park commission


About the artist:

Robert Stackhouse

b. 1942

American artist and sculptor Robert Stackhouse graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida in 1965. He later earned a master’s degree at the University of Maryland, College Park in studio art. An extensive archive of his work can be found in the USF’s Contemporary Art Museum, and he has exhibited the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.