When in doubt, make a circle

After years of making simple assemblages with found nature bits, I have literally circled in on the circle as my favorite composition. This should not have been a surprising realization– there is nothing more harmonious than the circle. The symbolism of a circle is well known: unity, wholeness, oneness, eternity, infinity, cyclicality, the divine, and on and on. I wasn’t thinking of any of that when I was making my earlier works. I was just pushing my subjects around until I saw something that pleased me. And what pleased me, more often than not, were circles–wreathes, crescents, oculi, mandalas, concentric circles, tangent circles, overlapping circles, spirals, rings, halos, ensos. Circles made me calm. They made me happy. By centering the eye, they seemed to somehow center my nervous system too. All hail the cirlce!