Thornton Dial made this tower from leftover welded metal chair parts from Dial Patio Metal Patterns, which he and Richard Dial started after the Pullman-Standard Plant in Bessemer, Alabama, where he worked for thirty years, closed in 1983. Because Dial often destroyed his early work—for fear of retribution in the climate of racial terror that surrounded him and other Black men of his generation—this work is the earliest of scale that has been preserved. Allegedly this sculpture convinced collector William S. Arnett of Dial’s extraordinary artistic prowess when the artist shared it with him in 1987.