Albert Paley Reconfiguration Author:Lela Gilbert Albert Paley/Reconfiguration is a photographic tribute to internationally renowned sculptor Albert Paley. It features a narrative by author Lela Gilbert about the inspiration, background and construction of Paley's extraordinary sculpture, Reconfiguration Arches. The text includes Paley's personal insights into his work. Perry,... more » Iowa lies at the heart of America's Midwest; the venerable Hotel Pattee has always been the heart of downtown Perry. After years of neglect, the beloved hotel was restored as an innovative living museum of the American Midwest's history, reopening in 1996. To complete the story of 'Hometown Perry Iowa,' Albert Paley was commissioned to create a unique gateway into Perry's Soumas Courtyard, adjacent to the hotel. Paley's sculpture was to commemorate those who had built Perry and made it, in its heyday, a fulfillment of the American dream. Initially, Paley intended to create a fabricated sculpture comprising gates or portals, similar in form and scope to others in his body of work. Instead, inspired by the people of Perry and by Iowa's history, Paley chose to create his first work ever fashioned of found metal. Scattered about the Iowa countryside he found relics of decades past remnants of the railroad, the mine, the factory, and of course, the farm. These items formed the vocabulary for his Reconfiguration Arches. In Paley's words, 'The reason the town of Perry exists is because of people who plowed the fields and opened the railroad and came together and shared all of that. The Soumas Court, where the Arches are installed, was created to somehow acknowledge that kind of collective memory... and the archways are a visual with resonance of all those activities that have gone before.'« less