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"Childhood
and early adolescence are difficult times in the life of any individual.
They are times of acquiring of new ideas, exercise of creative imagination
and awareness of new feelings and sensitivities. Hungry minds are
developing and being re-born into young manhood or womanhood."
"Looking back on those stages of development in my own life,
it seems to have been an age of discovery with a need for excitement
and escape to adventure through books. It was a magic era of "Treasure
Island", "Huckleberry Finn", and "Call of the
Wild", classics that were to shape all my future attitudes,
both personal and professional. Reading satisfied my need for privacy,
developed my literary skills, and introduced me to the fine arts.
Somehow it was an escape mechanism for short periods of time from
the world around me that I was still too young and inexperienced
to deal with."
"I'm not saying it was a singular effort because I had help,
encouragement and guidance. I was fortunate enough to have a mother
who read to me before I could spell, a father who took me hunting
and fishing on the river and a grandfather who showed me the skills
of creation with a pocket knife while sitting around the woodpile."
"The sculpture "The Need to Know" is a sculpture
born of this childhood reminiscence. It was a time when a boy and
his dog could relax under a shade tree and still travel to all the
remote corners of the world by means of fiction, fact and fantasy.
This sculpture celebrates reading as a doorway to creativity and
imagination."
"I had a professor once who said that "becoming educated
was the life long pursuit of individuals to find out who they really
are". Reading and scholarship are not the total formula; they
only reduce the number of footsteps and lessen the pain and mileage
of first hand experience."
"So I suppose this sculpture was a subtle message to children
that there is another exciting world waiting beyond video games
and Star Wars entertainment. Also, it is a plea to parents to teach
their children well; to be understanding and tolerant of their childrens'
"need to know". The only price paid is empathy, affection,
and personal time." - Hollis Williford, 1986
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