Wailing Bell
Washington State University, Vancouver Campus, Vancouver,WA
1996 • bronze, locust, yew, steel 17' x 12' x 2'

Sited near a pedestrian path in a wooded area of the WSU Vancouver Campus, this piece was conceived
as a memorial to the extinct species of the world. On each side, texts on stewardship by Gary Snyder and Linda Hogan
were carved into the clay before the bell was cast. Calligraphy by Jeanne McMenemy
The Extinction of a species, each one a pilgrim of four
billion years of evolution, is an irreversible loss.
The ending of the lines of so many creatures with whom we
have traveled this far is an occasion for profound sorrow
and grief. Death can be accepted and to some degree
transformed, but the loss of lineages and all their future
young is not something to accept.

Gary Snyder, Practice of the Wild
A change is required of us, a healing of the betrayed trust between humans and earth. Caretaking is the utmost spiritual and physical responsibility of our time, and perhaps that stewardship is finally our place in the web of life our work, the solution to the mystery of what we are. There are already so many holes in the universe that will never again be filled, and each of them forces us to question why we permitted such loss, such tearing away at the fabric of life, and how we will live with our planet in the future.

Linda Hogan, Dwellings