This is the first work completed in the Vessel or Bowl series. I had been inspired to create a series of still life paintings which were to include canonical artifacts from the Japanese Tea Ceremony (as reference to conscious mindfulness) formally juxtaposed with the palette used to paint each piece (a mindfulness of the unconscious). Impatient with research for that project (which I did later complete), I set up this work in an inspiration around a cereal bowl (a common artifact), and the design of William Morris (a reference to social ideals). The iconic figure/ground relationship presents the formal painting grid as a single intersection, weighted below with the iconoclastic gesture of paint dabs and daubs.

Cereal Bowl with Palette, 1987
Approx. 16" x 17" oil on mahogany