calls "inevitability", or a "fullness of being within limits" that defines function. Often associated with both Minimalism and Formalist sculpture, Puryear rejects that his work is ever non-referential or objective. The pure and direct imagistic forms born from his use of traditional craft are allusive and poetic, as well as deeply personal. Visually, they encounter the history of objects and the history of their making, suggesting public and private narratives including those of the artist, race, ritual, and identity. His work is widely exhibited and collected both in the United States and internationally. Included amongst Puryear's public works is his large-scale composition Ark (1988) which was designed for York College and can be viewed presently on the school's campus in Queens, New York. Puryear has also created several permanent outdoor works, such as Bodark Arc (1982) and Pavilion in the Trees (1993), and collaborated with landscape architects on the design of public spaces. A 30-year survey, organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York and which traveled to the National Gallery of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, included installations of some of the artist's largest works, notably the dramatically foreshortened 36-foot Ladder for Booker T. Washington (1996) made from a single, split sapling ash tree. Bask, 1976 Bask rests low on the floor in black, made of staved pine wood tapered at each end and swelling gently at the center. The subtle curvature of the work is achieved through the use of a ship making technique called strip planking once used to build the hulls of ships. Geometric in its construction of lines and arcs, it demonstrates well the influence of Minimalism in the early work of Martin Puryear. Ark, 1988 Martin Puryear's 36 foot tall and 70 foot long copper tubing installation, Ark, was constructed in 1987 and installed on the campus of York College in 1988 where it can be viewed to this day. Ark was commissioned by the college as a result of New York City's Percent for Art law. York approached Puryear in 1981 and his proposal for Ark was submitted in 1985. The armature made of copper tubing consists of looping and intertwined oval and circular shapes, swelling slightly at the center and sagging at the bottom, evoking the skeletal framework of a ship's hull. Puryear designed Ark specifically for the location in