Nature versus Nurture

This is another piece of my “Balance” series. Quite soon after making  “Second balance” I developed a few ideas along similar lines, and this is one of them.

The idea initially was simply to provide a balanced piece juxtaposing a flat dish with a ball of the same weight. However, when I made the dish, I had a piece of sycamore with some truly wild figure, and so I developed the idea further. Now the juxtaposition is not just the two shapes, but also the wild, uncontrolled, flaming texture of the dish against the geometrical order of the constructed and segmented sphere.

As with “Second Balance”, this piece is a bit of a puzzle for the general public. Most people approach it, look at it and then either pick up the dish or the sphere. Since they haven’t given any thought to the title and the construction, the rest of the piece immediately collapses into a heap, and they end up looking very distressed until somebody comes along and puts it all back together.

This is guaranteed to get a conversation going at any party or exhibition.