The sculptures were made of three layers of 1/8" poplar plywood bent around forms and glued together. My real material, however, was the empty space created by these open-ended forms. Each complete piece was composed of three or four parts. They were hung side by side at eye level for the viewer to LOOK INTO. By depriving the viewer of a "real" and obvious target to look at, my intention was to focus the viewer's experience on the act of looking, of perceiving.

This work was admired by Don Judd, Sol Lewitt and Ronald Bladen. Max Hutchinson, who would later have one of the most prestigious sculpture galleries in New York, wanted more work. I was about twenty-two when the sculpture was shown. I had never been to art school. Instead of staying in New York and building a career, I left SoHo for California.

In the SELF PORTRAITS & PORTRAITS I have created images, images of doubleness, for the viewer to look at (more passively) rather than presenting a perceptual situation for the viewer to engage with (more actively). The surface image, perhaps a face, or the figure of a boy taken from an old photograph, is juxtaposed with an image intended to suggest an interior state of consciousness.

In the abstract In-N-Out pieces, there is no longer simply an image to look AT. There is instead an object for the viewer to engage with. This hypothetical willing viewer is invited to notice the difference between having one's gaze stopped short by an unyielding impenetrable surface (the right side of the diptych) and being aware of the gaze entering the interior space (the left side of the diptych).