BEVERLY HILLS, CA.- Totems have pan-cultural associations throughout diverse cultures around the world, and these vertical forms have been used throughout history as tribal talismans representative of the spirit world and genealogies, ancestors and documenting societies. Herb Alpert, in his Black Totem series, has focused on this language of sculpture for the past 20 years and addresses this geneaology in his Black Totem sculptures. Alpert’s process for creating these sculptures is manually intensive. He works with wet clay first, molding it into vertical forms ranging from 8 to 36 inches tall. From these, he selects the ones he will make into larger sculptures that will range from 12 to 20 feet in height. These larger works are also hand formed with the wet clay. When completed, molds are made and then the sculptures are cast in bronze and patinaed black. Alpert’s totems read abstractly yet suggestions of recognizable forms