Stuart, Despereaux and Dock
The mice run up the clock
The cat  his claws a lurking
The mice a plan are working
What are they doing in the clock?

This piece was created specifically with children in mind.  My take on the nursery rhyme “Hickory, Dickory and Dock”, it is used as a narrative lesson during my visual art workshops to connect literature, writing & art.  I have always had a fascination with gears.  When the chain came off my bicycle I was quick to examine the workings, greasy fingers and all.  When my grandmother allowed me to mix pudding with the hand mixer I marveled at the speed in which the gears rotated, pudding spraying from the bowl.  A I began cutting paper, my fascination grew and I longed to create a piece with cogwheels.  Perhaps my great-great grandfather was a clock maker.  Perhaps my great grandmother worked in a factory during the industrial age.  However the connection, gears torque (a force which causes rotation) my mind. I remember one time when my mother and I went to the local jewelers to pick up a watch in which the battery had been replaced.  When we arrived, a man with a contraption mounted to his head containing a large looking glass peered up from his light.  His eyes, multiplying and three times their size, made me take a few steps back; he could have been the fly man in a horror movie.  He had the tiniest of tools and surprisingly, his stubby fingers could hold and maneuver them quite well.  I never became a clock maker, perhaps this is the way I can fulfill my fascination with gears.