Welded steel, 25 x 16 x 10, 2002.
“Vessel” has two meanings in the title. One is a container, a pitcher or flagon that holds blood. The other is the channel that carries blood through a body. The sculpture is a pitcher and a head, and the head is also the vessel.
The pitcher side is plain. A broad cylinder stands at the base, and a ribbed neck rises from it to a bulbous body that carries a handle in a curve at the back and a flat dish perched on top like a lid. The lid sits where a hat would. The handle is at the back and the projecting features are at the front, the way a pitcher is arranged to be lifted and poured from the side opposite the handle.
The front of the bulb is a human face in profile, with a nose, full lips and a chin. The brow tips back under the lid. The handle that would be gripped to pour the vessel springs from behind the head, and two concentric loops rise beside it. The vessel has a face and the head has a handle.
The ribbed neck reads as a channel, a hose or a vein between the cylinder at the foot and the head above it, and what runs up it is whatever the container holds. “Vessel” is also an old word for a person. In this sculpture the body is the container that holds the blood and the pipe that carries it.
