Over the last hundred years, this elegant figure has endured the battering winds, rains, and snows of the Massachusetts coast. It is one of many that line the Grand Allee of Castle Hill, the half-mile long “backyard” of an estate built by the Crane Plumbing fortune. The weathering of Castle Hill’s ornate statues provides a metaphor for the aging process itself. Yet unlike aging humans, this discolored, softened statue still retains its youthful appearance behind the fuzz of decay. That is the point of my image, a point reinforced by the abstracting power of black and white.