The Outer Reaches of Inner Space by Stewart Walker written for the artist     Such wisened hands begin with cool moist earth. Wedged and crafted as long snake-like coils are tamed and guided into place, pinched and smoothed, building up curving out and back in.     Entered into the crucible of heat and time baked until crystallized emerging from kiln as red burning primeval glowing globe. Cooled by surrounding atmosphere which bath it's inner and outer edges. Air, compelled to circulate as it absorbs the heat.     How is it that the colors and textures are then summoned to enliven an outer surface? The alchemy of metallic compounds swirled into some occult brew to be painted and plastered on this shell, whose true appearance is hidden and unknowable necessarily awaiting the second fire.     The most careful calibration of heat and time and reduction of oxygen causes dark and delicate weblike cracking, like rivers crossing through now emergent continents of colored mass. In this way simple clay is transformed, and something new is called to stand out into existence like a planet newly born.

But beyond even beauty and uniqueness, cosmic function begs understanding. a perfect container is created, empty of all things yet so full of gently rounded spaces.   This ideal form, mostly sphere-like, with such vital opening so that consciousness might reach into this inner space and so, also, from it's cocoon, space can reach out to fill this boundless universe. The portal allows the interplay, the breathing in and out, this very dance we know as creation.