Carstens Tönnieshof (l. to r.) 7915-25, 7323-25, 62-25

I confess to being less than mechanically inclined, a severe disappointment to my engineer father. When my father was young, he viewed objects like toasters as something to be pulled apart, inspected and understood… whereas I just saw the means of producing a browned, buttery vehicle for orange marmalade. I overcame that and developed a healthy appreciation for machines, as evidenced by the 26 year-old ongoing project (er, motorcycle) in my garage. While my head may hesitate a bit when striving to fix something mechanical, however, my heart loves the forms — the shape of a V-twin engine, the amoeba-like form of a crankcase, the perfect roundness of a cylinder, the grace of a chain. So it was easy to like the vases above, all of which evoke the mechanical. Even better — no moving parts!