The Golden Bowl

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or the golden bowl be broken...

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was;

and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Ecclesiastes 12:6-7

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I love to read. At times I latch on to a subject or an author and read until all is consumed or the hunger is satisfied whichever comes first. As a young girl I devoured Jane Austin and Jack London at different times for different reasons. Down the road a bit, I found myself reading the work of Henry James. I return to one novel, The Golden Bowl, every few years. The story focuses on two couples, but it is the women Charlotte and Maggie who stand out to me. Childhood friends who grow to be such different women in character and temperament, they become an interesting study of femininity.

When working on my version of the golden bowl, an object that crosses between these two women and revels all, I took into consideration not only the object in the story but the character of those who come in contact with it. The bowl in the story is fragile. It cracks not only furthering the plot but somewhat symbolic of the situation the characters find themselves in. My Golden Bowl is not delicate at all. Rather it is substantial and strong, like the characters themselves. The female silhouette with the cinched waist of corseted Victorian woman, shines on the surface. I wonder, whose path will my Golden Bowl cross. What stories might it become a part of? At present you can cross the path of this piece by stopping in the Artisans of Rocky Hill gallery in Fredricksburg, Texas.
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