Eye of the Beholder

The first thing that came to my mind when we saw the sculpture above in a nearby park was the beginning of Miriam’s song in Exodus 15:1

“I will sing to the Lord,

For He is highly exalted.

Both horse and driver

He has hurled into the sea.”

With fishes around the wheels, and what looked like a rusted chariot from the bottom of the sea, we thought it was a reminder of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from the Egyptian army under Pharaoh, or a reminder that political power is finite and can end, like this chariot, sunken and powerless. But why would they have such a sculpture here?

                Upon closer examination, however, we found that the whole sculpture was made of sea creatures and only looked like a horse and buggy.  As you can note, the horse is a sea-horse. What looks like harnesses, are actually tentacles from an octopus driver whose head has fallen to the ground under the “chariot.” The buggy’s roof is formed from a sting-ray, and the wheels look like star-fish internally. It is an altogether intriguing sculpture, and most likely represents the Mediterranean not far away.

  I like to think of this image as a transformation of Pharaoh’s chariots. The carts that were meant to deliver death were somehow co-opted by God’s creatures in the sea and transformed by their artistry into something new.