The Size of Rhode Island

 Office of the Attorney General, Providence, Rhode Island
2021
Exterior: sand-carved glass, stainless steel, LED. Interior: hand-carved wood, sand-carved glass, aluminum, LED
78" x 28" x 3" (each of seven exterior columns); 60" x 40" x 3.5" (each of two interior panels)
Commissioned by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts

The Size of Rhode Island is a single work in two parts, developed together across the building envelope of the Attorney General's Office. The premise is simple. The state is small, but its history, and its more than 400 miles of coastline, are vast.

Outside, seven sand-carved glass columns mark the civic entry, carved with the coastline and history of the Ocean State. By day, light catches in the carving and throws colored shapes across the plaza. At night the columns are lit from below and glow sea blue. Visitors walk among them and find angles and details that can't be seen from a distance.

Inside the lobby, two softly lit wall panels carry the argument indoors. Hand-carved wood blocks depict three kinds of breaking wave, a reference to the state's beloved shoreline and a nod to poet Seamus Heaney's image of justice rising like a tidal wave. Sand-carved glass panels, the color of ocean water, hold imagery gathered through outreach and research across the state: reminders that Rhode Island's history is among the oldest in the country, set beside what makes the place singular now. Angled light moves over the glass and polished wood and rewards a second look.

Visitors pass the columns on arrival and meet the panels once inside, so the two halves read as one statement about place, past, and future. The work has become a genuine civic fixture, and both parts serve regularly as the backdrop for the Attorney General's press conferences.