Description: Bronze (1976) | Dimensions: 30”h x 10 ½”w x 12”d; Edition #3 of 21

In 2008, James Nottage wrote for Southwest Art Magazine the following regarding George Carlson’s excitement about conducting a detailed study of the Tarahumara people in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico. “The Tarahumara were largely isolated from tourists and subsisted upon beans, corn, and beef. They lived part of the year in caves and practiced age-old ceremonies heavily influenced by the Catholic Church. In working with the Tarahumara, Carlson believed that he was documenting a group of people he knew were going to change. He went further in 1992 when recalling his objectives and what he had accomplished when he said that he wanted to go to a group of people who were living in an indigenous way. From the daily to the ceremonial aspects of their lives where he could create expressions of their vitality, of their essence as people. He endeavored to convey feeling, to show where their humanity came through."

Clearly Carlson accomplished what he set out to do. “To The Four Directions” depicts a shaman offering gifts to those directions in a traditional ceremony practiced by the Tarahumara and other tribal cultures. Carlson was allowed rare access to ceremonies such as this one during one of his many visits to their homeland. The sculpture shows Carlson’s characteristic expressionistic style where one can literally see how his hands worked the clay to produce this striking image. The EBC is proud to have this bronze in its permanent collection.