A Hawaiian native, Shiroma currently teaches advanced ceramics at San Jose State University. Shiroma received a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from San Jose State University in 1980. He has exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and received the prestigious Fleishhacker Foundation Eureka Fellowship in 1994. Shiroma is inspired by his physical surroundings and translates these feelings and visual qualities into three-dimensional sculptural forms. His sculptures' relationship to the Earth has been a major theme of his work.

This sculpture, located on the stair landing near the Library's front entrance, creates a rock outcropping that implies a preexisting site--the raw living stone on which the Library rests. One of the sculptural rock pieces is covered with linear designs that allude to a language more pictorial and symbolic, a predecessor to the written language.

"Conceptually, the stones relate to the foundation--a historical one and a physical one. Historically the stones pay homage to the people who have come before. I wanted to make a connection with this past to our present site, the Library. The working of the stone and the linear designs allude to an early but sophisticated 'language.' Physically the stones allude to the earth, the foundation for the building but also a foundation for us, a reminder of the sustenance that the ground provides."

60" x 60" x 18" Terrazo, 2004