Figure-Skate-Field-Reverse, 28" x 22", acrylic and modeling paste on paper, 1993. Artist's collection.

This painting began as an attempt to create a stratagem of black and white forms and tones which would conspire to create a perpetual figure/field reversing scheme. The reversal of pictorial space occurs by way of a viewer's perception of the white and black sides of the composition as being oriented to the central passage of angular gray shapes in a three-dimensional illusionistic condition as either a positive shape, or, a negative space, of the overall composition. The Saint Helices composition has had as many as five areas in the composition that perform a figure/field reversal.

I also applied a double-form of a figure--a figure skater, no less. The form is derived from a newspaper photo of a spectacular element in the routine of a pair of skaters who were top-ranked in the world at that time. The element of their routine which the newspaper photo captured was a moment when the male skater literally tosses the female skater three feet above his head and she performs a triple-spin in mid-air, and then lands back in his arms. This maneuver was performed as the pair were shuttling across the ice, in unison, at full speed. The newspaper photo captured the moment when she was in mid-spin above him, and his arms were raised above his head.

I made a template of the outline of her form in the photo. I placed the template on the surface of the painting and filled-in the template with modeling paste. I executed this procedure in both, the center of the white area, and in the upper section of the black area. Then I painted these sculptural forms to match their surrounding areas.