I recall the following story from correspondence long ago with Nietzsche scholar Deborah Hayden. I hope she will forgive any misattributions or inaccuracies in my memory. It's an observation Nietzsche made about weeds during the hour of high noon. It went like this: "It's at this time of day, when the sun's directly overhead and radiating intense heat, that weeds extend their leaves out to the maximum distance to protect their seeds just underneath in the ground."

I was then, I still am, profoundly moved by this
sinew and gut stuff 
--stuff, how else to say it?--  
from which we come,  
to which we go.

This is at the heart of these sculptures titled High Noon, as well as forming the conceptual underpinnings in the ten-part Meridian Series of outdoor sculptures that followed and that was just completed in 2011.  

Ed McCullough