The Raft Lake Fables are a new series of sculptures that wistfully recall some of life’s hard learned lessons. Each illustrates a personal memory of family lore from my youth at the cottage on Raft Lake. The slip cast porcelain figures are uniformly glazed a simple white – the innocence of childhood. The hand built cottage-life objects are surfaced with textured eroding glazes to suggest the blur of fading memories. The imagery is meant to signal nostalgia and gently irony.
These new sculptures evolve from a previous series, The Factory Work Series. The Factory Works contrasted the imagery of endearing delicate figurines with antiquated eroded industry. They addressed the common doldrums of a workers’ day-to-day drudgery. The Raft Lake Fables are a more personal and introspective investigation.