Six Of One. A Half Dozen Of The Other.
Six Of One. A Half Dozen Of The Other.
The Pure Pleasure Of No-Thing-Ness
I retired from teaching nearly three years ago, and with that transition came a gift: time, an abundance of it. This newfound freedom has allowed me to fully embrace my passions, reading, writing, and making art. More meaningfully, it has given me the chance to spend quality time with family and travel with them to explore museums and galleries, which continue to fuel my creative spirit.
As a lifelong learner, I’ve found particular joy in taking foundry classes at the local community college. Working with bronze has opened up an entirely new medium for me, one that’s allowed me to return to projects I started years ago but never brought to full fruition. This process of re-engagement has been deeply rewarding. Much of my work continues to reflect my long-standing interest in exploring the nature of the self. The pieces I’ve created in these classes tend to be introspective, and overwhelmingly, they lean toward the positive—expressions of reflection, growth, and quiet optimism.
This brings me to my final project for the semester: Six of One. A Half Dozen of the Other. As a conceptual artist, I’ve always been drawn to the ideas of nothingness, no-thing-ness, and emptiness. These themes have been recurring elements in my work, originally sparked by the existential absurdity found in the plays of Ionesco and Beckett, where human existence is portrayed as lacking inherent meaning or direction.
Over time, however, my relationship with the concept of nothingness has evolved. In more recent works like sacredTextSacredSpace and Fragile, nothingness has transformed into something more expansive, closer to the idea of “pure zero,” a space of infinite potential. While I remain profoundly grateful for the life I’ve lived and the work I’ve done, I sometimes sense the pull of a more skeptical, even cynical, lens creeping back into my art—echoes of an earlier chapter in my creative journey.
In Six of One. A Half Dozen of the Other, I chose the torus, the donut shape, as a central metaphor. It’s a form that perfectly captures the idea of emptiness: a literal and symbolic zero. Donuts, after all, are indulgent, sugary treats packed with empty calories, designed to spark desire in that part of the brain that can never be fully satisfied. I’m reminded of Kara Walker’s reflections on sugar in The Marvelous Sugar Baby, as quoted in The Work of Art – How Something Comes from Nothing by Adam Moss. Walker notes, “Sugar has been about desire, since it was refined.” That line has stayed with me.
My hope is that Six of One. A Half Dozen of the Other evokes in viewers a sense of visual pleasure, something akin to the momentary beauty of a flower. Something ephemeral, lovely, and full of suggestion. A sweetness that lingers, even as it fades.
Six Of One. A Half Dozen Of The Other. Installation
Six Of One. A Half Dozen Of The Other. Installation