A Bioacoustic Waveform Sculpture

About seven years ago, close friends, Nick & Mel’s, beloved dog, Rex, passed away. He wasn’t just my friend’s companion — he was one of my favorite dogs, too. Not long after, Nick asked if I would create a piece of art to honor Rex’s memory. I happily agreed.

For months, I brainstormed ideas. Some felt uninspired, while one concept stood out — but it was beyond my style with a paintbrush. I kept coming back to that idea, yet every time, I reached the same frustrating conclusion: I couldn’t make it the way I could see it. This creative paralysis lasted six years.

Fast forward to last year — I was watching an interview where the subject walked past a massive art piece on a hallway wall. The piece captured the sound waveforms of the indigenous prairie birds chirp where the office building now stood. I’ve always found waveforms visually compelling, and from that moment, the idea stuck with me. It wasnt till 2 months ago that the idea came to merge this bioaccoustics with the Rex art.

I reached out to my friends, asking if they had any recordings of Rex barking. Unfortunately, they didn’t, but they did have a video of him playing in the yard. At one point in the video, Rex runs past the camera, and you can hear the sound of his breath. Lucky enough I have a friend who is an Acoustical Scientist (Hello and thank you, Kevin!) who was able to help me clean up the sound and pull out the audio down to just one breath as Rex passed by.

Rex was an Australian Shepherd with a mix of caramel-colored fur and white markings. My original plan was to carve the waveform into walnut using a lathe, paying tribute to his markings. However, when I rotated the waveform 360 degrees into a solid shape, I realized that the details of the design would be lost in the shadows of a dark wood. On top of that, my lathe—a tool my grandfather left me—was nearly 40 years old and no longer operational. I considered outsourcing the carving, but even a skilled woodworker connections had concerns about the feasibility.

While exploring options, I built a 3D model to prototype different sizes, allowing me to assess its tactile feel and sense of scale. The solid white printed prototype quickly revealed that dark wood would obscure much of the intricate detail and surprisingly, the printed white version didn’t, it provided a new perspective. I decided to integrate dark wood into the base, representing Rex’s coat, while keeping the sculpture itself white to reflect the markings on the back of his neck.

The final piece stands on a pedestal, intentionally abstract at first glance. It rests on a pin, allowing it to be removed and held in hand in its proper orientation. Etched into the base is the original waveform, its outline, and a 2D cross-section of its final shape, along with the words: One Breath – Rex.