When I was artist-in-residence in the town of Otranto, Italy, I became intensely attracted to the Ottoman weapons (Cannonballs everywhere!) perhaps because my father and uncles had been in the armed service by the sea--Iwo Gima, Siege of Rome, Battle of Dunkirk, the Philippines-- and this combination of sensations and memories called me to make art from the weapons.
It was a conceptual idea that lead the artist to cast the cannonballs form the 1480 Ottoman siege of Otranto Castle: to embrace not only the texture of the cannonball but also to capture the essence of the weapon, the energy embedded within the material, and to transfer that energy into her sculptures
palamidessi.blog 