Merlin in a bottle
I didn’t set out to make a figure. I was following a curve.
It started as a line of movement—upward, tapering, unsure of itself. Then it folded slightly. Not like collapse—more like deference. As if it knew something I didn’t.
Somewhere in that motion, Merlin appeared. Not as a character exactly, but as a presence. One that stands tall but doesn’t dominate. It doesn’t demand attention. It gathers it.
The surface is quiet—charred in feeling, but soft in tone. A mix of matte ash and glazed dusk. It holds onto light without reflecting it directly, like something absorbing more than it reveals.
If you walk around it, the form shifts—subtle but noticeable. What first feels monolithic becomes fluid. The curve near the base has a kind of rhythm, almost like a sine wave frozen mid-flow. There’s motion in the stillness.
I gave it the name Merlin in a bottle because it reminded me of something cloaked and contemplative. Not theatrical. Not a wand-waver. More of a silent architect of something internal. I imagine it as a container of sorts—but not for anything literal. Maybe for intention. Or memory.
This piece belongs to a larger exploration I’ve been working through for years: how sculptural vessels can hold more than substance. How their posture, their weight, their silence can communicate something that words don’t quite reach.
Merlin in a bottle is part of that inquiry. A response to a form that asked to be made—and a reminder that even in stillness, something can hum with purpose.