The art of stone in a Japanese garden is that of placement. Its ideal does not deviate from that of nature.
It is weight that gives meaning to weightlessness...
You can find out how to do something and then do it or do something and then find out what you did.
The best is that which is most spontaneous or seemingly so.
Everything is sculpture. Any material, any idea without hindrance born into space, I consider sculpture.
To order space is to give it meaning.
I am always learning, always discovering.
Art should become as one with its surroundings.
We are a landscape of all we have seen.
Brancusi made me realise that what I had learned previously – the quick ways of doing things – was all wrong. It is a search you have to enter – into yourself.
For me it is the direct contact of artist to material which is original, and it is the earth and his contact to it which will free him of the artificiality of the present and his dependence on industrial products.
In my work, I wanted something irreducible, an absence of the gimmicky and clever.
When an artist stops being a child, he stops being an artist.
Appreciate the moment.
I perceive my limitations even as I work. There are times when I see nothing but restrictions, barriers. Learning takes time.
The attractions of ceramics lie partly in its contradictions. It is both difficult and easy, with an element beyond our control. It is both extremely fragile and durable. Like ‘Sumi’ ink painting, it does not lend itself to erasures and indecision.
The essence of sculpture is for me the perception of space, the continuum of our existence.
When the time came for me to work with larger spaces, I conceived them as gardens, not as sites with objects but as relationships to a whole.
It is said that stone is the affection of old men. That may be so. It is the most challenging to work. A dialogue ensues – of chance no chance, mistakes no mistakes. No erasing or reproduction is possible, at least in the way I work, leaving nature’s mark. It is unique and final.