Desert Sand Wind

San Diego sculptor Donal Hord was fascinated by indigenous traditions throughout the Americas and in East Asia, which he had studied since childhood. Hord worked in a variety of materials inspired by local cultures, including the dense lignum vitae of "Desert Sand Wind," which was used by Mesoamerican craftsmen. Hord's Native American figure makes use of the sinuous lines of grain in the wood to complement the torsion of his dance. The artist was one of a number of American figurative sculptors during the 1920s and '30s who borrowed loosely from diverse cultural traditions in order to endow their works with a sense of exoticism and sensuality.