To understand the mathematics behind this sculpture, look at The Möbius Band and Fibre Bundles in the Sculpture Maths section.

The sculpture was created in the first year of my SYMBOLIC SCULPTURE adventure and preceded the next sculpture ETERNITY, which symbolises the continuous whole of life.

DEPENDENT BEINGS depicts the union of man and woman as being the corner stone of Family Culture and therefore, Civilisation. This union lasts but a brief moment in the terms of universal time, leads to the creation of our children, and in the future will lead to unions of their children, so creating a continuous whole, ETERNITY.

The most important event of my life was falling in love with my wife. Our life together has led to the creation of a family, and as I grow older and begin to understand the true values of life, I realise that nothing else is as important. The family is, for me, the foundation stone of civilisation, and the garden of culture.

How was I to capture this in a symbol? I began with the idea that the 'continuity' I was thinking about could be represented as a circle. I bent a one inch pipe into a three foot circle.

I thought of the male surface as being rough and the female smooth. How to combine the two ? I cut squares and punched a one inch hole in the middle of each tile, and then threaded them onto the circle. I now had a circle of four bands, and I discovered that by twisting one of the edges across to another, I reduced the number of edges and bands to two of each. I roughened and dark patinated one band to symbolise the male and left the other smooth and polished gold to symbolise the female.

I see this sculpture as symbolising the male and female joining together to become one being. Each surface would collapse without the support of the other surface. Join them together they have a double strength. Each has no purpose without the other. The binding force is `love', and for me, the definition of `love' is when you realise that you care for someone more than you care for yourself. (see LOVE KNOT ).

An edition of this sculpture can be seen in the chapel of Wadham College, Oxford, donated by EPRIME ESHHG.