Life

Artist Adam Walls like to leave this sculpture up to interpretation by the viewer.

Named "Life," the piece shows a male symbol located inside of a large female symbol. To Walls, the work represents a mother carrying a male child.

Others have taken it to show a savior on Earth preparing a home for us in Heaven, Walls says.

What do you see?

Life"Life" is a big piece - weighing 300 pounds and measuring 10 feet tall, 13 feet wide and 9 feet deep - and you can't miss it in the middle of the roundabout on East Front Street, near the entrance to the Arbors at East Village apartment complex.

The piece looks totally different from every angle you look at it, which makes it a perfect piece to adorn a traffic circle. Just remember to watch the road while you're admiring this shape-shifting work of art!

This is the third year Walls' work has been featured on the Clayton Sculpture Trail, and he has demonstrated tremendous range as a sculptor in that time. This year, you'll find another of Walls' creations, "Tree," in the roundabout at Spring Branch Medical Park, located at the intersection of Springbrook Avenue and Medspring Drive.

The 2nd annual sculpture trail featured Walls' "Windchimes" in Town Square, and last year's trail saw his "Mother and Child" - a pair of fabricated steel orbs weighing 500 pounds - located outside of The Clayton Center.

Adam WallsAdam Walls is a large-scale sculptor and professor at UNC Pembroke, where he has taught since 2007. His previous teaching experience includes Limestone College, USC Upstate and an assistantship with Winthrop University. Before teaching at the college level, Walls taught 6 years in the public school system and 3 years for art centers and other private institutions. He operated his own ceramics studio where he taught pottery and won numerous awards for his ceramics as well as his woodworking and steel fabricated sculptures. He received his MFA in Sculpture from Winthrop University in 2005 and his BA in Art Education from Limestone College in 1996.

Adam Walls of Hope Mills, NC is a member of the College Art Association and the Tri-State Sculptors Association. His sculptures have been exhibited in numerous sculpture parks and sculpture exhibitions across the country. Walls' current work is predominantly monumentally scaled steel fabricated forms, which often reflect his interest in escapist fantasy. As an educator with over a decade of teaching experience, Walls' dedication to his students is embodied in his pedagogy. He covers a variety of subjects that include steel fabrication, plaster casting and carving, woodworking, the creation of volumetric forms using found objects, stone carving, and the creation of functional art and sculptural prosthetics. His teaching philosophy promotes students to find their own voice and to make use of a variety of materials.

Life