As a boy, I was afraid of a stuffed fox that my grandfather kept in his basement.  My mother would send me downstairs to get milk from the refrigerator.   With a gallon of milk in my hand, I would dash up the stairs so that the fox couldn’t attack me.  I created a bronze fox to represent this type of irrational fear.  When I finished sculpting the fox I placed it on a pedestal; I stood back to look at what I had done, and I realized that the medium I had used and the manner which I had situated the sculpture seemed to enshrine and thereby perpetuate my fears.  I decided that I needed to take action by returning the fox to the fires which created it.

In a public performance, I hurled the fox into a bonfire.  In order to get the fire hot enough to melt bronze, a great deal of fast-moving air was required, hence the construction of the giant bellows.  The repetitive and exhausting pumping of the bellows was a self-imposed act of catharsis aimed at changing my orientation toward my fears.