"Homeland Security Series #2; Twin Terrors."

Illinois Wesleyan Professor’s Sculpture Conjures 9/11

Feb. 26, 2003

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. —Sculptor Kevin Strandberg’s greatest childhood fears centered on aberrant cloud formations — funnel clouds from the not infrequent tornadoes in his native Minnesota and mushroom clouds from the fear of atom bombs.

As he watched the World Trade Center ‘s twin towers collapse into rubble on 9/11, Strandberg flashed back to those fears, and the Illinois Wesleyan University art professor eventually blended these images into a new sculpture, "Homeland Security Series #2; Twin Terrors."

The cast bronze, aluminum, and glass piece stands 41-inches high and weighs 300 pounds. The two large twisters, cast in aluminum, loom menacingly over the boarded-up, glass house that sits precariously atop a cast-bronze hillside.

"My work has always been produced in reaction to current events within American society," Strandberg says. "The shock that I felt after September 11, 2001, was mingled with those feelings of fear that I recalled growing up. This piece is an attempt to express these continuing fears."

The twin tornadoes not only portray an awesome, destructive force at work but also represent the disintegrating twin towers of the World Trade Center. "I had begun by having these two ‘clouds’ appear to be transforming from the building towers into the cloud formations," he notes, "but that was not as effective or as menacing as these imposing tornadoes."

Strandberg chose glass for the house because of the symbolic value of its fragility. This was his first attempt at casting glass in a large kiln at the Illinois Wesleyan art studios. He chose a neo-lavender glass, which has a bluish shading prior to being cast, after which it takes on a violet hue. A light is shone from under the sculpture to accentuate the color of the glass.

Strandberg has worked in a variety of media — wood-carving, aluminum and bronze casting, and "found-object" assemblage. The challenge, he says, has been to combine dissimilar components into a cohesive design. Glass posed new challenges, and he spent a year experimenting with glass castings.

"This is, by far, the most complicated casting that I’ve ever done," says Strandberg, who assembled the sculpture by hand in Illinois Wesleyan’s Ames School of Art. "Not only is the metal casting complex, but glass is a tricky medium."

This is part of a series of sculptures that Strandberg is completing in response to the terrorist attacks. All will feature the stylized form of a boarded-up house being assailed by some destructive force to portray a dangerous external force threatening the sanctity of American homes.

A member of the Illinois Wesleyan faculty since 1979, Strandberg holds an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a B.F.A. from the University of Minnesota. He has degrees and professional achievements in photography and sculpture. His work has been exhibited most recently in national juried shows such as: New Blood at Murray State University in Kentucky; Florida National, Florida State University; and the 27th Annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture Exhibition, Corpus Christi, Texas. His work is included in the Kemper Corporate Art Collection. Strandberg received a grant from the Bloomington Cultural District art committee to assist in funding the sculpture.