"Orange Twist'' (cast rubber), by NIHO KOZURU, in her show "Cast & Layered,'' at the Hess Gallery, Chestnut Hill, Mass., through Jan. 28.

The Boston sculptor says that she's inspired by the traditional and industrial architectural forms she sees around New England.

I know what she means. I come from a family background in which materials and engineering ruled our occupational lives. No one talked much about the "service economy.'' It was all about mining, growing, making and shipping real things, appreciating their practicality and, in passing,  even their beauty.

"What a beautiful machine!''

The gallery notes say  that Ms. Kozuru "pumps new life and vision into old forms in an approach that bends our understandings and conceptions of reality and form.''

Even the word "rubber'' seems old fashioned now, bespeaking a pre-plastics time, tropical colonies and yes, a quaint nickname for a male contraceptive. (It was better than the lining of a sheep's stomach.)

--- Robert Whitcomb