Tokyo, (Private) Japan

WOMB HEIGHT 3FT (1M) POLISHED BRONZE 1982 "Before birth the girl child carries the seed of life"

When I am showing visitors around one of the private collections that is home to 30 of my Symbolic Sculpture, we follow a wandering path that threads naturally through a wood. Nearing the end of the walk we come to a group of sculptures that I introduce to the viewers as "The Maternity Ward". They are titled WOMB, MATERNITY, CONCEPTION, and EMBRYO.

The greatest experience of my life is being married. Falling in love, growing to care for someone more than you care for yourself, companionship, and all the other wonderful things that come from being married, came home to me with incredible force, when, as a father, I held our first baby the day he was born. It is these feelings that I have tried to capture symbolically in these four sculptures.

First there comes WOMB. When I first saw my grandaughter, I thought of the miracle she already possessed. Before birth the girl baby already carries the seed of life, the next generation. The egg inside the egg. This is the way I have depicted WOMB.

The Philip Trust Collection, England (Private)

CONCEPTION HEIGHT 3FT (1M) POLISHED BRONZE 1982 "the joining of the mystic knowledge of the parents"

I see CONCEPTION as the coming together of the Mystic Knowledge of the Mother and Father. I call the awareness that separated Modern Man from Ape Man, Mystic Knowledge, and represented it by using the Spiral that is found all over the world in prehistory petroglyths.

One of the best examples of this is the entrance stone of New Grange tumulus near Dublin, Ireland. This symbol is so powerful and to me means `expanding awareness'.

An even older form of this spiral, dating from 16,000 BC, has been found at Mal'ta, Siberia. On this ivory medallion is a large spiral that seems to come out of the hole in the centre. On the other side of the medallion are carved three snakes. But for me the exciting thing is the three pairs of `running spirals' just as I have used in CONCEPTION. This sculpture is cut from an ovoid, the symbol of life.

The Philip Trust Collection, England (Private)

MATERNITY HEIGHT 3FT (1M) POLISHED BRONZE 1982 "maternal protection within the family"

Then comes MATERNITY. I see this sculpture as a symbolic Mother and Child. The arms, cut from an ovoid, reach out and enclose the child ovoid with all the tender loving care that mothers give their children.

EMBRYO HEIGHT 3FT (1M) POLISHED BRONZE 1982 "two mystic knowledges have become one"

The Philip Trust Collection, England (Private)

And lastly there is the EMBRYO. Here the child has already developed its own Mystic Knowledge. The two spirals have formed into one, and the child has started out on the journey of it's own singular life.