Statement for Sculpture Website, 2000

Most of my oeuvre is devoted to the numberless inflatable vinyl topological transformations of disc or torus that occupied me fully from 1975 to 1984 then off-and-on up to the present. As art styles have waxed and waned these forms have been interpreted variously as minimalist, procedural, systemic, structuralist, biomorphic or geometric. I accept any of these limiting descriptions even though for me the work is expressive, intuitive, empirical, experimental, and instructive. The work led me to learn about symmetry, and about the formal potency of the spiral which I found to be key to the formal fecundity of all transformations. I came to see and use many versions of the spiral as a vehicle of instruction and as a metaphor for the life-force.

As the experiments accumulated it was possible to re-assemble, analyze and structure one complete collection of closed transformations, "Anolatabulata", into a totality with comprehensive internal sets and subsets. This, leading me towards an understanding of structure, became a sculptural model for the way in which all life forms develop and change. The completion of the 59 member "Anolatabulata" set was assisted by mathematician, Phil Huneke, who introduced the idea of a Zeeman's Dunce Cap. Starting as paired triangular three dimensional surfaces upon which all 59 forms can be interrelated, the two sides are folded, mirror-matched, then inflated to becomes the plan for a comprehensive three dimensional array, see "Zeeman's Dunce Cap" 1979 at Triptych 9 of images

The initial "Anolatabulata" forms were developed by topological manipulations of a yin-yang subdivision of paired discs drawn on flexible vinyl. Within the resultant wide variety of biomorphic shapes many were particularly intriguing in that they recalled human and animal forms. Later distortions of the basic yin-yang refined the process to produce the quite delicate and "lifelike" shapes of the series entitled "Life Sculpture" and "God's Games". (See "Life Sculpture" above). At the present time, May 2000, a selection of these shapes is being brought to completion as larger-than-life sized bronzes by Tallix.

Concomitant with the several "closed" sets of forms that followed "Anolatabulata" I became very excited about the way in which the pairing and displacing of repeated tori create continuous spiraling transformational structures within which shapes first appear as spiraling forms then segue｢ into formless surfaces. Rotationally symmetric "Open" 1977, the first and the simplest of a series of large pieces entitled "Universe", was the seed that let me imagine how the Universe might continuously transform. An elaboration can be seen in the mirror-matched and displaced asymmetric tori of "Gold Plume" 1983. In "St Sophia" 1983, the colored bands of paired Archimedes spirals projected into a reversing helix code the geometry.

Although geometry became the medium of investigation in this work, the underlying expressive character was re-emphasized about five years when I realized that the pieces chosen for reforming into hard forms represented a matriarchal lineage that began with my great-great grandmother and rested with my daughter, Jane. 04/13/00.