Poseidon
Like the ancient poets and sculptors I find it easy to imagine the sea, and other forces of nature, in human form. When I carve a figure of Poseidon, it is not an academic exercise. I relate to the external, physical world through the forms of the imagination, a skill I find entirely compatible with the most advanced scientific knowledge of the physical world. In coastal New England, my current home, a region known for its pragmatism, this attitude was expressed in the fantastic carved ships figurehead—both a local tradition and one that extends back to antiquity. Odysseus might have adorned his ship with similar forms — sea gods, fabulous beasts and aquatic nymphs, all rising from scrolls and volutes that represent the ever-churning tides and foam. It is interesting that this is one of the few aspects of traditional American culture where both the Baroque and the pagan were welcome. Sober New Englanders would not put a graven image, or even an ornament, in their Puritan churches, but the sailors were glad to have these mythological figures leading the way on their voyages into the unknown. A formless, remote God was not adequate when the fear of death was palpable. This visual language was imported from Europe in the hands of craftsmen rather than in the minds of scholars. As a carver, my hands have been trained in this language, which I fuse with the forms and techniques imparted by a modern art school education. The ideas that manifest themselves as artworks, exist in the whole being—hands, eyes and heart—they are not confined to the control tower in the scull.
Cleopatra’s Banquet
The forms of art are not restricted to a specific culture because art depicts psychic or metaphysical dramas, not ones that take place in time and space. In my Cleopatra’s Banquet, Cleopatra is about to win a wager that she can “out-feast” Mark Antony by ingesting her priceless pearl dissolved in vinegar. Antony represents Rome—temporal power and riches. He is us, master of the material world, and his feast is a conventional assortment of delicacies we might consume. Cleopatra represents the mystical East of the imagination. She will prove that to possess a treasure is not to hold it in ones hand but one must be willing let go of it, to destroy it, or rather to absorb it into one’s being—to participate in the flow of nature. The material pearl will mix with her material body but it will also blend with her human consciousness, that mysterious immaterial treasure we all possess. This radiant jewel lies at the center of each individual yet will forever elude those who will try to understand it by holding it, studying it and possessing it. We must let go of it and let it dissolve into our entire being as we dissolve into the universe.
