Public art has been popping up all over the city recentlyas part of efforts to increase Alexandrias vibrancy and cultural significance.

Last Wednesday, ThreeEggs in Space, a sculpture by Karen Bailey, was installed at Mount VernonCentral at the intersection of Commonwealth and Mount Vernon avenues.

Bailey hopes the meaningof the eggs is not scrambled, and she outlines its significance in her artistsstatement:

The full meaning onlyreveals itself over time, so it was hard to pin down what the piece was aboutuntil I worked with the forms further. I can say now, that besides therepresentational content of “Three Eggs in Space,” with itsmini-mystery of the third egg being in space, as in the sense ofan art work being in the medium of clay, for example, making thethird egg literally an egg in space, there are two other meanings this piecehas for me.

It symbolizes thefeminine. While I like the reading that some viewers have had of itrepresenting a woman with her arms overhead, that was never part of myintention, and so I dont think this piece represents the feminine in anyliteral or representational way, anymore than the Washington Monumentrepresents the masculine in a literal reading of being a phallus, althoughbalancing the classic phallus symbol with a womb symbol, might not be a badthing!

The sculpturesymbolizes the feminine by its creation of a safe, protective space in whichlife unfolds. One of the main intentions of this open O form was to create aspace that invited people to enter, to interact with, to have their picturetaken through and so to be approachable and nurturing.

Another title for thisarrangement of forms could be The Circle of Life and this is the sense of thework that symbolizes the feminine side of life vital, growing, developing,erupting life!

There is anothermeaning that has become apparent to me just recently that it is a metaphor inform and space for the three -old nature of the human being: Body, soul andspirit. I really hope that the community will love it as much as I do, and begrateful to Stewart for investing in something so unique and valuable. 

Stewart Bartley of Y-12Investments donated the work of art.