Sculpture represents ‘concrete’ love

Shane Smith and Rachel Kennedy danced to TV On The Radio’s “Will Do” at their wedding to celebrate the beginning of the rest of their lives together.

A year prior, after meeting and falling in love in Orono, Maine, they stood on Mount Katahdin, the state’s tallest mountain. At Knife Edge, a precariously jagged, narrow passageway to the summit with a steep drop on either side, Rachel yelled, “Is this what a girl has to do to get married?”

At the next cliff, Shane proposed.

“That’s kind of how our life has taken shape,” Smith said. “One kind of proposal to another, leading us to more adventures.”

Just four days after their wedding, Shane and Rachel moved about 500 miles away from each other.

Kennedy, who was applying to postdoctoral positions in biochemistry, and Smith, who was searching for Master of Fine Arts programs, were unable to find programs in the same location — their ultimate plan. A research and teaching position at Columbia University was the only job Kennedy was offered; Columbia was the only school that did not accept Smith.

“As our life was unfolding, it opened up into two different directions or at least different states — New York and North Carolina,” he said.

While separated for two years, they were not apart.

“I mostly walked to Carrboro, and everyday I was walking by myself on the street and seeing the brick and the cement, and at the same time I would talk to my wife often, so I would have her voice there — there was always some presence of her,” he said.

Deeply inspired by married 1950s Asheville artists Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil, who used cyanotype photosensitive paper to record Weil’s imprint, an idea formed — whereas Rauschenberg and Weil were able to be together during graduate school at Black Mountain School of Art, Smith found a way to make Kennedy part of his UNC experience; a way for her to be there when she couldn’t be.

Concrete Angel is the newest sculpture in the Alumni Sculpture Garden outside of the Hanes Art Center. Smith created it by making a concrete mold of Kennedy’s body, which coexists with the concrete around the University.

Dressed in a $300 wet suit in 90 degree weather, Kennedy was lowered into the cement on a two-by-four wood piece and instructed to stay still.

However, the slight slip of her hip was what Smith said made the piece.

The slip caused an ethereal feeling to the sculpture, a notion of floating.

“That little bit of poetry where it was just a body floating in space and it opened up the sky — we couldn’t have intended that,” Smith said.

“I think it’s beautiful and airy,” Kennedy, who loves the piece, said. “It feels light.”

Director of Graduate Studies for Studio Art elin o’Hara slavick, who has worked with Smith for two years and will show artwork with Smith in June, is not surprised by the sincerity portrayed in the sculpture, citing Smith’s quiet kindness as a strength.

“I think it’s so poetic and personal and loving — it’s really incredible,” she said.

Now, after graduating from the MFA program earlier this month, Smith and Kennedy are celebrating their union the same way they started it.

They attended a TV On The Radio concert in Brooklyn last week — together.

arts@dailytarheel.com