The huge wall mounted tablet is almost completely covered with metal leaf. The gold, silver and copper create a shiny lure, and refer to the medicinal value of metals. Beneath this wrapping, partially legible in the interstices, is the language of government health care cutbacks. Specifically, the pill's surface is covered by an enlargement of the portion of the Ontario Government's Hospital Re-Structuring Committee's 1997 report that announces plans to close Women's College Hospital. Like the tablet, broken into pieces for ease of swallowing, our health care system seems to be fragmenting. That's a "bitter pill", as the carving of those words into the surface of my work makes clear.

Eat Me's title derives, of course, from Alice in Wonderland. In the book, those words are written on a cake in currants. Alice follows its instructions and eats it entire, not at all sure how the cake -- like other magical Wonderland foodstuffs -- will change her life. We wonder the same thing about the Government's health care policies.

The challenge of this piece was to create the massive physical presence I desired. I wanted an impressive giant pill, complete with characteristically arced surface and incised trademark-style name ("BITTER PILL"). But I'd never before designed nor brought into being such a large relief work. My woodworker was intrigued by the prospect of creating a three-piece wooden base that fit together to form a circle 6 feet in diameter. He gave me a wonderful structure on which to go wild, building my tablet out of layered styrofoam slabs, then carving, covering, and decorating its surface. The physical work of creation was long and hard, but it helped me build the muscles I needed when it came time to install the work at The Drug Show! Thank goodness for an excellent technician friend, whose help was vital to getting the three pieces hefted on the wall.

Exhibited at The Drug Show collective of 30-plus artists, 170 Spadina Ave., April 3-30, 1998.

Please contact me with any questions you might have about this piece.

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