Art As Metaphor

Hal Murray creates metaphor through art (or art through metaphor if we want to get into a chicken vs. egg debate…).

"Well, these bowls are vessels, because they're a useful object and they can carry things, just as much as *you're* a vessel: you carry the DNA, the feelings, the losses, the hurts of your life. And so I make bowls that exemplify that. (He holds up a damaged bowl.) This is a tremendous example of a bowl that blew apart, so somebody who's just completely fallen apart, to drugs, alcohol, whatever, and then (He shows me the repaired sections of the bowl) through patience and a lot of time and effort, you're able to put it back together. And, if you look at the inside of the person, you'll see that it's not smooth, but now they're back to being a useful vessel although you can still see that they've got some crags in them, but they're useful. This is an example of somebody who's gone through great physical or emotional pain and they've lost something, something very vital to them and that's perhaps the most interesting part about them."

---