What I love about life is that we’re looking for and finding those moments where we realize that this is all a co-creation and that we have absolute control and power.

—Rose B. Simpson

A cairn is a type of monument: a carefully balanced pile of stones made as a marker, a record of your presence, or in memory of someone or something. In her sculpture titled Cairn, Santa Clara artist Rose B. Simpson explores these concepts of balance and marking something important through the symbolic representation of herself and her young daughter.

The artist’s body becomes the stones placed precariously on top of each other, as in a cairn, signifying her new identity as a parent and the delicate balance between being a mother and an artist. The small child perches at the top, poised on her parent’s shoulders. Together, they achieve a sense of equilibrium.

This sculpture is on loan to the Toledo Museum of Art from Art Bridges.

Rose B. Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo [Khaʼpʼoe Ówîngeh], born 1983), Cairn. Patinated and painted bronze, 2023. 84 × 17 × 15 ¾ in. (213.4 × 43.2 × 40 cm). On loan from Art Bridges. On view in Libbey Court.

Image Description: This is a sculpture of a standing human figure painted white and divided at the waist by a large, round form painted reddish brown. This stone-like form seems to balance on the bottom half of the figure, while the top half balances on the stone-like form. The figure of a small child sits on the standing figure’s shoulders with their arms wrapped around the top of the adult figure’s head.