Oh Snap!

The patina of the bronze hand represents the corrosion that happens when something is left in the ocean. Referring to the lobster and crab traps the get left behind when the ropes start to weather and break, with no way to retrieve these hundred pound cages littering the ocean floors, Caught inside is the hand of man both destroying the environment and caging his own future as the health of the earth and its inhabitants is swiftly and surely disintegrating . The hand is petrified as a result of its actions as there is no hope left.