the piquant.

Culturally and symbolically, lead, because of its density, is the reification of gravity, both physical and intellectual, and is the chemical element most closely associated with death itself. When we speak of a leaden sky, it is not only the color we mean: the gravitational impossibility of the image presages worse than rain. Lead sarcophagi are traditionally used to preserve the bodies of popes and kings to ensure that the soul does not escape. 

Lead does not corrode, and so preserves what it contains, because it forms a surface layer which blocks further chemical attack. It is this thin layer that ultimately preserves the roofs of many of the cathedrals and churches of Europe.

The profound and contradictory meanings of lead – fortune and fate, creativity and destruction, humor and seriousness, love and death – has inspired me to employ it in my work. My Lead Lungs are prediction of my own fate at the hands of my materials and a reminder of the involuntary and invisible mechanism of life. The human body breathes in and out between 15 and 25 times per minute without a conscious thought or effort.