MIDDLEVILLE, N.Y. (WKTV) - A solar powered hammer created by a locally-hosted artist will be looking to shine as it performs its work at an area diamond mine.

The kinetic solar sculpture will be at the Ace of Diamond Mine on Route 28 in Middleville on Monday, August 31 from 10 - 12 p.m. as part of an ongoing project artist Betsy Alwin has been working on at Sculpture Space in Utica.

The work, which Alwin calls "Determination and Desire / Destruction and Beauty," was initially conceived from the geology of diamonds and the development of their worth. After several trips to the Ace of Diamond mine to find diamonds, Alwin said she became more interested in the labor-as-recreation aspect of the activity and the urges people have to do such heavy and sometimes grueling physical work.

"As I watched people in the mine, toiling away on stones with crude hammers, I saw that they were completely - mentally and physically - engrossed in the hunt," Alwin said. "People hammer for hours on non-descript stones with the only intended purpose being that they might find a perfect gem."

After hours of observation, Alwin began to feel that the act of repetitive hammering and pulverizing of stones was hypnotizing - a repetitive activity evolving into a somewhat obsessive/compulsive habit. Searching for one gem often led to the search for another, more perfect specimen and so on.

"The concert of striking hammers created a particular atmosphere in which I felt that the activity was really about the hammering; the joy of destruction with the added benefit of finding a sparkling jewel," she said. "This phenomenon, both comical and poetic, exemplifies the human traits of determination and desire and inspired me to make the hammer machine. Constructed mostly from found materials and powered indefinitely by solar power, the machine mimics the habitual hammering of the novice miner. The struggle of the motor, the slow rising and abrupt drop of the hammer illicit an empathetic impulse that simultaneously nuances THE many ways of looking at the action. Rather than acting as a tool of convenience, it begins to deconstruct a behavior, investigating a quirky relationship between human nature and the natural world."