The Sky Starts at the Ground

Derek Parker
The Sky Starts at the Ground
Polypropylene webbing, safety pins,
fiberglass rod
2014

It is remarkable how our perception of the earth can change when we view it from high above. While we inhabit the land and are by nature familiar with its terrain, it is when we are lifted into the air along the great arc of a jet’s pathway that we can peer through a small glass porthole and truly see the ground below. In this work, The Sky Starts at the Ground, the artist considers the kinship between the curve of an aircraft’s passage between destination points, and the rise and fall of the land itself as it appears to the airborne traveler.