Over my long career as a teacher and artist my work has changed many times, from painting to sculpture - from metal to clay - and from making functional pottery to creating fictional objects. Recently, the evolution gained momentum, propelling me into a new area of the trompe l'oeil genre. In the mid 1960s, while concerned primarily with utilitarian ware and abstract sculpture, I created a few trompe l'oeil pieces, starting with thin sheets of porcelain rolled up like scrolls of paper. However, it was not until the late 1970s, that 1 returned to this idea and began the Family Records series by assembling the scrolls in containers made of stoneware that mimicked old boxes and baskets. At that time, I merely hinted at the contents of the scrolls, allowing the size, ribbons, and colour to suggest diplomas and certificates. Most of us have some hard-earned scrolls stashed away and nearly forgotten. When we encounter them, there is some remembering and a bit of mystery connected to those old rolled-up papers. Pursuing the idea of objects with concealed contents, I baked a few dozen porcelain fortune cookies. Fortune cookies, like scrolls, do not reveal their contents until they are opened.
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