essay

What are they? My sculptures combine elements of both painting and sculpture, and are not easily defined. Pictorial sculpture seems like a logical category of definition. More importantly, they convey meaning, imagination, passion, creation and aesthetic values and contents; so they fit beautifully into the classification known as "works of art".

Why this form? The emphasis on teacups serves many purposes. It gracefully combines two visual subjects into a unified entity. As porcelain and tea were trade objects passed between Eastern and Western civilizations, so a parallel is intended between these works and boats and teacups (they are all vessels) as conveyers, connecting psychic contents between the realms of spirit and soul.

The cup represents the body, as myth informs us humans were first formed from clay. The liquid in the cup is then consciousness, an aware reflective surface contained by the body. The boat or object floating within the cup shares qualities of soul; a living object partly above and partly below the waterline of consciousness that journeys on the river of life fulfilling the story of its destiny.

The emphasis on containers is an intensification of the purpose of the picture frame. With the accelerating ravages of industrialism and the nuclear blast wind of modern predatory capitalism, a stronger protection is needed for the soul and its dearest symbolic objects. My experience is that "pouring" art contents into these container forms of teacup and teapot gives an extra degree of shelter from the malignant corporatism and hyper-media damage exerted on social conventions formed to nurture and protect the soul.

I choose to emphasize richness and bounty in choice of subjects and treatments, whether landscape or still-life or archetypal densities of meaning; in order to advance the greatest potentials of joy and beauty life offers. Tragedy's meaning is addressed and underlined because it is an absolutely valid part of the whole, and must be included in any attempt at rendering a truth. Falling short of the great goal of living life's joy is tragedy. I feel joy and tragedy in a keenly poignant, immanent sense, and try to share these perceptions through the creation of these artworks.