I’m calling this new series Phorae, from the Greek root phor-, “to bear or carry,” the same root hiding inside amphora. Each vessel is a bearer: that which holds. The individual pieces I think of as zooids, separate organisms, each with structures that do what nature’s forms do. They breathe, feed, move, and sense.
I’m not consulting reference for any of it. I’m drawing on thirty years as a science illustrator, and on the intimate knowledge you gain of an organism when you draw and paint it.
Art began as the way I processed the world as a kid, and it has evolved into something I can conceptually dissect in my mind and reassemble, a kind of evolutionary theorizing. What if there were another Earth-like planet with similar environmental pressures and advantages? What might have evolved in Earth’s past that left no paleontological evidence? What might evolve a million years from now as climate and geology shift?
Like someone writing a mythology inside historical fiction, I’m playing with any number of factors and characters. Each one is suited to its own niche and story, and its form reflects what it’s meant to do.
Visit the Phorae gallery page to see the first fired pieces.