2006. 

Mixed media, 10.5 x 8.5 x 2.5 inches.

"This is Not a Pipe," is a tip of the hat to Surrealist, Rene Magritte.

In 1929 he painted his famous painting of a pipe titled:

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

This seminal work was an artistic expression of the fact that no matter how realistically something is drawn, painted, sculpted, photographed, etc., it is, alas, still only an abstraction of the real life object it represents. 

In this cabinet, an actual clay pipe competes with an illustrated pipe to blow the most bubbles.

Here again, the  "bubbles" are, of course, not actual soap bubbles, either. 

Each is a rather heavy 3-dimensional object that mysteriously floats in space both on the inside and outside of the cabinet.

The verso of this piece shows an illustration of a child blowing bubbles, and again, the pipe is not a pipe, the bubbles are not bubbles, and the child is not a child,

There is also a message to the couple for whom this piece was made on the occasion of their 35th Wedding Anniversary.