Carolina's Got Art - First Place Award

"The Space Between"  45" x 25" x 5"  steel, bamboo, lacquer, paint

This piece "The Space Between" was accepted into an exhibition Carolina's Got Art a the Elder Gallery in Charlotte, NC. Lance Esplund was the juror for the exhibition. He is the art critic for Bloomberg News and Muse.  It was an honor to be selected by Lance Esplund for the exhibition and to have "The Space Between" chosen for the First Place Award. Below is the statement I wrote to accompany the piece.

"The Space Between"  Statement

       The vessel is a metaphor of interior and exterior, of containment, of transport and journey.  It is both universal and personal. A vessel can symbolize self. The vessel in all its many forms is my muse. These vessels are enigmatic being boat pod shapes, or pod tool shapes or tool vessel shapes. Once a piece is begun, it takes on a life or story of it’s own. As I respond to the process and materials, a dialogue develops between the piece, the material, and me. The vessel allows me a vehicle to investigate new ideas, materials, narratives and relationships.

       A number of years ago I became interested in how shadows extend the presence of a piece. Shadows are ethereal, always changing and can appear very solid yet one cannot touch a shadow, it touches you. For many years I have explored clay to create very solid and stable vessel forms.  I am interested in how shadows extend the presence of a piece. In “The Space Between” the individual vessels represent the essence of a vessel, stripped down to its basic elements, its skeleton.  The essence of the vessel is felt and brought alive by its shadows and its interplay of shadows with its neighbor’s shadows.

       I am interested in duality and the idea of a grouping of vessels that are intrinsically bound together by placement and the interplay of shadows. “The Space Between” explores relationships and inter-relationships between individual pieces. This grouping of vessels is intrinsically connected by the interplay of shadows. Created separately, these individual pieces are presented as a grouping to strengthen and highlight a sense of similarity and contrast. A dialogue is created by the contrast of line, and form and how the 3-dimensional forms are translated into 2-dimensional shadows.  Each vessel is an individual, separate and yet touched by the neighboring vessel’s shadow. The shadows overlap and weave together creating a silent conversation whispered on the wall. These negative spaces and shadows enter into the dialogue, extending the piece and representing the silent energy or the unsaid between individuals.