Star of Still Water

The lotus has many forms. In this piece it arrives not as a bloom above water but as a star pressed into clay, its six arms spreading from a gilded seed at the center. The form borrows from the radial symmetry found in both Persian tilework and the quiet geometry of a flower opening at dawn. Worked entirely in white air-dried clay on a circular ground, the sculpture holds its meaning in texture rather than color. The slight unevenness of each raised arm, the faint shadows pooling at its base, the single gold accent at the heart: together they ask the eye to slow down, to trace a line before moving on. Placed on a wall, the disc reads differently as daylight shifts. Morning rakes across the relief and sharpens every edge; afternoon softens the whole into something closer to a memory. The work offers no single correct moment of looking, only an ongoing one.