The Earth itself was our Quest-- ourselves, in relation to this whole thing and ourselves seen in it. I made a simple painting of the earth from space using a NASA photo. It was used as an illustration for George Soros' World Crisis Center and was on the invite for a fund raiser which Philip Glass was involved in.
I liked this possibility to get involved politically. I blew the drawing up into a big painting, actually now remembering I painted it out side as I waited for my studio to be built in NM.
I made a Night Studio mock up or drawing and placed landscapes revolving around the earth.
There the whole thing seemed to come to a reality-- the earth was in the sky, the sun shining and revolving, a sunrise painting and the high noon of the sunflower and the sun setting over the Pacific.
There was the metaphor I was looking for.
I made a second identical painting and made it upside down as the whole seemed to revolve.
Living in New Mexico I see a lot of pottery shards which drew me to them as they looked to me like early b/w paintings of mine.
I had seen that the designs were a picture of the negative and positive that drove my own work and I felt the possibility now to see them upside down as the bowls could be viewed turned around.
This was profound for me as my friend Paul Georges had gone to Hofmann School in the 1950's and his main idea he transmitted to me was of free space the opening up of space by placing heaviest objects in the sky the opposite of photography and gravity.
