39th Annual Spiritual & Religious Art of Utah

Everyone has had that moment where they have had to dig deep and just find it. For me, I have had moments in the Army where I was drowning. My body stopped functioning and I was slipping under the ocean waves into the deep. The only thing I could do was hope — hope that another fellow soldier would somehow find me and fish me out.

Even though this moment involved my life, everyone has had this universal experience. A human experience: to find hope. On the sea there are many stories, forgotten and forever remembered, of immigration, victory, tragedy, heroism, cowardice. A common factor that unites all these disparate stories is hope.

So this sculpture — made of found materials from an abandoned mine, an abandoned foundry, an abandoned train depot — reminds us of the moments we have had to dig deep and find hope.