Client
Location: Scottsdale, AZ, United States
Completion date: 2022
Project Team
John Randall Nelson
Ryan Ruff
R.J. Ruff and Co.
Overview
“Yip, Yip, Yip” appears as part of the 2022 exhibition Curious and Fanciful Creatures: Real and Imagined as an homage to the Grey Fox, the Mexican Grey Wolf, and the Coyote. All three feral Canids inhabit Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. The Grey Fox is about 12 to 16 inches tall and weighs about 10 lbs. They have slender legs and long tails. This sculptural Canid, by contrast, is 6 feet tall, made of 1/4” galvanized steel plate and weighs about 500 lbs. Symbolically, the fox appears in the folklore of many cultures as a figure of cunning and trickery, or as a familiar animal possessed of magic powers. The Fox is emblematic of magic, and is a quintessential symbol of good luck!
Goals
“Yip, Yip, Yip” references both abstraction and modernism. As in Cubist sculpture, the subject is analyzed, broken up and reassembled, reducing the figure to its most fundamental features. The approach for every project begins by emphasizing the point of view, perspective, and scale of the site itself. Make it impactful, make it theatrical, and integrate it into the surrounding environment.