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Mark Lere’s Step Wedge is a bronze sculpture made in 1988. It stands just over two-and-a-half feet high, a little under two feet wide, and just over six inches thick. The sculpture resembles an oblong pill shape, leaning slightly to one side and balancing on a slightly flattened end. But it is not a simple pill shape; the top half is cut away in a zig-zag to create a set of four even, squared-off steps. If the sculpture were a complete oval, the lowest step would be at the midpoint, and the highest step would reach to about the three-quarter point. Given that the sculpture leans in the direction of the highest step, it may not reach quite that high.

While Step Wedge is a solid work of bronze, its texture and color are by no means uniform. The surface is all over adorned with shallow hash marks etched into the surface of the metal. They are mostly very short, horizontal and vertical marks, sometimes etched over again in sweeping arcs or long diagonals. The edges of the steps themselves are pock-marked and dented, resembling steps made of rough-hewn boulders. The borders of the oval are darkest: a deep, nearly-black hickory that lightens as it reaches the center. Here, streaks of pink like an old, tarnished copper penny poke out from bands of walnut and black. Where light hits the sculpture directly, it glimmers and gleams.