Coupling Device (detail), 48" x 48", oil on panel, 1986. Artist's collection.

In retrospect, No Radio was a seminal work in my career which in many ways assisted me to discover the Saint Helices series. The "coupling device" of No Radio which is simply a visual device which formally and/or conceptually joins forms into the realm of ideas, became the "edge forms" in the Saint Helices series which are forms unto themselves as well as metaphorical areas of interface between forms, spaces, and ideas.

In life--love is a point of interface between two entities; the surface of a mirror is a point of interface between an entity and its reflection; religion is a point of interface between an entity and a philosophical program of thought and experience; art itself is a point of interface between the creative process and an audience. My interest in this line of thought inspired me to create visual forms which represented this "point of interface" concept. This painting is a large-scale treatment of the imaginary "coupling device" in the previous No Radio painting. The form was executed in the highly polarized chiaroscuro method that I was investigating at the time. The only function of this highly functional-looking device is to perform as a metaphorical construct for that which cannot be described by visual forms.