November, 1996

Ira:     What are the respective weights of pain and pleasure?  Are the body and spirit equal in importance?  Love and hate, life and death, where do they start, where do they end?

     The values we assigned to the components of our existence, when we were five years old are not necessarily the same when we are fifty.

     When we are dead do we know life?

Corliss:     When I started this painting I was contemplating the inequalities of the material world.  Upon completion I realized we were speaking of spiritual inequalities as well.  There are no absolute equals, when speaking of people.  And not all equal measurements have the same value.

Commentary from exhibition at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California.