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Figure 2: Diviner by Paul Stopforth (Photo Credit: Jay Block).

classical mythology, the flute is most positions, and many poets have con- worked surface and complex symbolic
strongly associated with Pan’s pining nected the holes in the instrument to allusions, Alchemist feels light and airy,
for the nymph Syrinx, whom the Gods the sorrows of the human heart. It is suspended above the weight of human
turned into reeds to save her from his through suffering that the heart is made intransigence.
lustful pursuit. Despondent Pan binds hollow; yet it is only through such Next to Alchemist in the Moakley audi-
some reeds together and blows through hollowness that it can be transformed torium is Diviner (fig. 2).
them in order to hear Syrinx’s voice into a flute, an instrument for the God
again. But the most important allusion of love to play upon. Throughout Made on an unusual cut-out birch
is to the Hindu God Krishna, whose Alchemist’s stippled ground are red out- wood support, the crouching figure
flute playing can erase separateness lines of lotus blossoms, another symbol seems at once grounded and weight-
and generate unconditional love. In of transformation, one of Buddhism’s lessly suspended in the palms of the
classical Indian dance, there are a series central allusions to the progress of the four wing-like hands around him.
of mudras that delineate flute-playing soul. Despite the giant hands, minutely His stretched out right hand reiterates
the axis of larger hands and is poised
in the position of a diviner whether
casting sacred nuts or bones, reading
His spiritual and intellectual animal tracks on the ground, record-

explorations of a wide variety of ing results of mystical numerology, or
consulting an ancient text. It is also
world cultures have encoded the hand gesture of the painter. Both
professions can diagnose afflictions,
a truly global perspective into decode seemingly random patterns,
serve as repositories of memory and
his work. wisdom, and bring insight into the
human condition.

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