This morning, as I sat down to drink my cup of coffee, I had an encounter with my shapes, one that I rarely have, or take the time to notice. As I sat there, I looked, and I saw a cup and a small jug, one beside the other, almost the same height. The jug was a copy of the cup however it was upside down in form, the cup had large letters drawn in soft blue and looked confident and strong. What was so noticeable about these shapes was not just there similarity in size, but the space that was created between them. In between the forms was an almost electric negative space that bounced from one to the other and highlighted the lines, the contours. The contrast in decoration was also striking. The jug held lines and colour while the cup was speaking with large text written around it so all you could see at one time was a large letter. An “e’ was facing me. I like the letter ‘e’, it has a roundness with a sharp edge that is satisfying to draw and to look at. After I had drunk my coffee, disturbed the little scene before me, and then had another coffee – it was an early morning – I thought about what shapes can do, the power that they hold. Over these last few months, I have been in the studio making, making, making. It is sometimes difficult and always challenging. I do lose focus of what the end result will be, quite often, and the process of making takes over. Today, I looked. Today, I saw that more than one shape can tell a story, that the combination of lines and forms can relate to each other and create something new. A photographer once told me, hesitantly, not to fill each piece with so much information, images, lines. I heard him but I didn’t listen. Kevin has also said this to me. Now, I think I understand what they meant – that it takes more than one person to give me advice I will listen to, that it takes more than one cup to make me wake in the morning, that it takes more than one paragraph to make a chapter and more than one chapter to make a book.