1994-2007. 

Mixed media, 10 x 5 x 5 inches.

"The Impossible Thing"  is a play on Victorian curio vitrines, but more importantly, it's about the implied love between the two birds--both artificial, one realistically carved, the other a streamlined mech-anical brass whistle. 

The realistic bird looks piningly at the abstract bird, as if it were real--while in fact, neither bird is real--both are just abstractions of birds crafted by two different artists. 

Also, the carved bird seems to be guarding its four "eggs"--one egg is a 3-dimension- al miniature in a small china bowl, while the three others are 2-dimen-sional renderings from a detail of a Flemish still life painting--and a reproduction of that original painting, at that. 

Nothing in this piece, other than the glass vitrine, is real, yet the object is rife with emotion because of the juxtiposition of the found objects, and the smothering bell jar confining all the disparate elements.

This piece, more than any, illustrates how millenea of drawings, paintings, sculptures other arts including dance and music have, via realism, symbolism, romanticism, hyperrealism, camp or kitsch, profoundly touched a spark in the human heart.