As children we form concepts we
will use for the rest of our lives. We adopt these notions to
judge, compare and form our ideas of self, community and our surroundings.
Some of these notions are a positive force. Some of these notions
are negative and act as a destructive force to our health, maintenance
of society, and the welfare of our environment. To facilitate
personal sovereignty and the responsibility that accompanies this,
it must be understood that when these fundamental thought structures
confine growth, we must break through the artificial barriers.
While repotting some plants, I
became fascinated by their root structure and mostly how the roots
were bound into the cylindrical container they where growing in.
I have seen this before, as I am somewhat neglectful to my plants.
This time though, my mind made the connection between this everyday
occurrence and the human condition. This suggested that we are
contained by thoughts and emotions, by patterns set up from concepts,
grown from fundamental structuring such as societal living or
the notion of prosperity or beauty. With this seed of awareness
I began the meditative process of casting everyday objects I saw
as representing these principle notions.
The first step in making multiples
of a sculpture is to cast a negative of the object. I utilize
rubber in the casting because of its forgiving qualities, even
thought I must destroy it in the end, it adds a degree of freedom
to the process. The casting will change over time in the damp,
fungus prone environment; also, giving and distorting its shape
from the force of the roots finding weaknesses. By utilizing this
negative as a container in which to grow a plant, then recording
its life and ultimate suffocation under 
the conditions of being root bound, I
am able to connect to a life death struggle with physical
confinement. It is not that much of a leap to the connection with
conceptual forms of confinement.
In the piece containment - concept, a china-doll plant rises from
the mold of a Buddha figurine, while its roots grow within this
confinement. With this work I am borrowing a basic precept and
interpreting it as the striving to see the world as it is and
not through the veil of manufactured ideas. The piece itself sets
up a circular thought pattern since I begin with a given principle.
To break the thought cycle it is necessary to extract the confined
root, completing the process by giving opportunity for further
awareness, examination and meditation.
Like this example, this series
as a whole is an action, the process taking about five years from
observation thru commitment and finally to completion. The action
of creating, giving space to grow, waiting, observing and refining
my method, as well as, the visual reminder left behind by the
photographs and sculptures, help in understanding the forces at
play when in the grips of unhealthy or
misplaced emotions or thoughts
such as anger or fear. When the direction we are pointed
is not in a direction best suited to our health, we can then use
the awareness that we are being confined by thoughts and emotions
as a tool to find a different action. This change in action may
compel a further change in thought.