"In "Up and Coming” I use the pitcher as a metaphor for "female". Certainly, there have been departments in universities base semesters of intense study as to the historic tracings of the pitcher; they refer to it as "the vessel". Starting with cupped hands, to seashells, stone, clay, or glass, but no matter what the material, real or imagined, the pitcher is a life-giving female. Look carefully at it, you will see very faint lines emerging from in and around and about the voluptuous body of the pitcher. Follow these lines - threads that flow out and away from the pitcher and leading to the set table with a knife, fork, and spoon and a tea cup and saucer, the threads flow in drifting fashion around the bottom of the rocking chair, then climb like spiraling vines of the woods, raising and freeing her power to the atmosphere, now it is free flowing and moving closer to the eye of the needles being held high by "me", so here I am, engulfed in vision of the future. I am encased in shape of the crystal diamond, my eyes are deep in a prism, the clearest center of bending light and giving to the totality of seeing across tomorrow.
In this drawing I have gotten up from the rocking chair to rise to an occasion, life calls for great and complicated threading of the eye of our being, the male and female have developed from the evolutionary perspective to be so different, yet we must weave and weft in the same cosmic rhythms. This drawing is about Charmaine and me, very personal, but my thoughts are this, if it is personal and meaningful to me, then why would it not be for others as well. We all share and participate in the human experience, what is applicable to one as a rule is also applicable to many. I will also say that this drawing is about my world, with Charmaine holding a place through and through. I have made many works of art that had Her, the Her in my life, she is always present in my art." - James Surls
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