When the desire to create a new sculpture of Buddha entered my consciousness it embarked me on a year’s study of Buddha sculptures past. I had no idea so many had already been done, and how thoroughly excellent they were. Nevertheless, when the marble carving I was working on at the time, Swords Into Plowshares, was completed I sat down to model in clay my evolving sculptural concept of a Buddha.

What emerged was a sculpture called Becoming Buddha. Just as a face can be divided down the middle revealing a different aspect of one’s character on each side, so it is with this concept of Buddha. If you divide it down the middle it has two distinct aspects. On the one side is the traditional Buddha configuration of enlightenment, and on the other side is the depiction of contemplation, thus Becoming Buddha, the process of spiritual transformation.