James Baker Professor of Art, Providence College,

It is astonishing that from the quarry was taken, with so much labor, such a massive amount of stone. Stone that eventually became the foundations andwalls of many of Newport's homes, both grand andhumble. This great dispersal of natural material intothe community also created a single, vast, enclosed space which has now become a city park and a communal home for the peaceful contemplation of nature. By placing her Tractatus sculpture in this empty place, Barbara Westermann has revealed a cycle--nature into art, art into nature--and has restored the spiritual and poetic soul of this extraordinary place.