Claes Oldenburg, a Swedish pop artist, created sculptures and art installations featuring mundane, everyday objects enlarged or distorted. One series in particular of "soft" musical instruments demonstrates the deconstruction and anthropomorphization of form, including this work, Soft Saxophone, Scale B. The distorted saxophone, constructed from canvas, wood, resin, and latex paint, gracefully echoes the female form, suggesting a mournful or contemplative pose with legs curled underneath. Other instruments in the series include harps, clarinets, and a drum set, collapsed in on itself to lie in a soft, disorganized heap.

Oldenburg's other works include a whole variety of "soft" objects and a few truly massive installations, such as Plug and Spoonbridge and Cherry, a massive spoon arching over a pond with a cherry balanced on the upraised edge. On display in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Soft Saxophone, Scale B was one of the works which influenced and impressed me in my childhood. I am thankful to my parents for taking me, to the museum staff for creating this environment, and to Oldenburg for showing that the most ordinary of objects may be transformed into the fantastic.