In the late 80’s I started to work in the lost wax method for bronze for the first time. I made a number of free standing frames with twisting organic forms within. One of the wax frames that I took to the foundry was empty with no motif within and I thought that I would weld some form inside of it at a later time but never did. After the casting I put a turquoise patina on it and without much thought named it “The Blue Dream”.
It sat around for some time and I just didn’t quite know what to make of it. Within my creative process at this time I had reached what could be called a road block. I didn’t know how to procede in a meaningful way. The little turquoise frame kept cropping up in my mind but I still did not know what it ment, if anything at all. Then one day every thing fell in to place.My ideas and feelings of the Blue Dream became crystal clear. Without being nihilistic in the least, there is this obvious emptyness-meaninglessness to the whole thing. There is also this multiple game going on. I take this two dimensional frame off the wall and make it in to a three dimensional object. The frame, in and of itself, is the boundry between something supposedly of importance and the rest of the world.
Within my Blue Dream there is this framed nothingness, the void. The idea was to frame this nothingness in the most beautiful materials. Marbles and granites from the world over; cast iron, stainless, cor-10; titanium, bronze, aluminium, solid cast glass, just an excuse to have these wonderful colors and textures around. In a way the Blue Dream project boils down to a good healthy enigma. It has answered some important questions that I have had about life in general while retaining and projecting the orignal questioning that I have always had. It is rather like a statement, a question and an answer, all wrapped up in some funny time continuum. I have a true interest in the philosophies of both eastern and western religions but for me, I find myself leaning towards what I feel to be a healthy skepticism of what I will call the “basic thought processes of belief”.
The conundrum of current events gives me an unease with the separation factor of those who profess to have the answer. Having said this, I do consider these empty “Blue Dream” frames to be objects of meditation.
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