Metaphorically, really. I’m more interested in conveying ideas than I am tea. In 1980, I first came to Montana. I love the expansive landscape. But I don’t know that the landscape really affects the work. I’m working out of a political landscape, really. I’m getting good reduction. I’ve reduced the, uh, oxygen level in the kiln. The flames just come jumping out because they’re literally seeking oxygen. Just putting a little more gas in so it’ll fire a little quicker. I do about a four day firing cycle. Drives my wife crazy. Uh, you know, I get up every two hours to check the kiln. I was born in Chicago shortly after World War II. (projector clicking) I’ve always made things by hand. When I was a kid, I was constantly making models. My father was an immigration lawyer. We had many gifts from Chinese clients in our house. And so, from a very early age, I became very fascinated with the intricate, with detail, with very tight meticulous carving. When I was a kid, I remember seeing the very stark footage of the discovery of the concentration camps. The piles of bodies. Had a very, very strong impact on my life. I’m carving ears. There are two different clays that I layer so that what I get in the end is something that looks very much like sedimentary rock. It’s part of this ongoing project that I call “The Legacy Project.” And it consists of a pile of ears. The pile keeps changing and there’s so many different layers of meaning. You know, the fact that ears have long been used as a way of counting the dead in war. The other thing about the pile of ears is I was very much trying to recapture the sense of the pile of shoes after the Holocaust, the remains of people that are gone. So they are ears that are stone-deaf. They’re not learning the lessons that are all around us. You know, I work from a place that’s deep inside me. That-that I’m very passionately angry about. I’m pissed off that there are nuclear weapons, you know? If an artist can’t say what they really feel in their heart, you know, what the hell is the point? (strained): Okay… Got it. The vessel is really the primary canvas of ceramics. And the teapot is the most complex of vessels. You can really play with a lot of images and juxtapose a lot of different images to build a narrative. Urban destruction from World War II becomes a teapot. This is the handle… uh, the lid right here, this kind of lifts out. And, uh, this rubble creates a vessel which connects with this kind of tilted, broken chimney which becomes a spout. The yixing teapot was literally invented in Yixing, China, about 1,500 A.D.. Suddenly, there is an explosion of creativity. All different forms, from segmented forms to natural forms to geometric forms. I’m inspired by these pots. I’m inspired by the craftsmanship, the finesse of line, the compositions. But while I imitate the pots in a technical, and sometimes esthetic sense, I’m not making Yixing pots.