Amazing Snakelike Installation Spans 100 Feet Long

This snakelike piece is a 100-foot-long installation created by sculptor and furniture-maker Barbara Holmes. The California-based artist produced the complex arrangement using lath (narrow strips of straight-grain wood) collected from the San Francisco city dump.

Simply called Untitled No. 5, the piece consists of scraps that are assembled into a lively three-dimensional structure. Throughout the room, the fragmented parts fan out and naturally blend together into one coherent and organized composition. The color variations in the weathered wood produce a visual texture and spark a curiosity about the previous purpose of each piece of reclaimed material, while the circular shapes curve, bounce, climb, and splatter along the walls and floors, consuming the space and taking on a life of its own.

In much of her work, Holmes transforms discarded materials into unexpected forms. She says, "I believe the emotional state of awe and wonder is an essential part of human experience. As an artist I enjoy transforming and recontexualizing materials, often reworking the ubiquitous into something unique and the banal into something of intrigue. By making objects that thwart easy definition, I create an open environment to encounter the work while experiencing something novel."