William Ricketts Sanctuary

I think that as we age our journeys mark us, and ultimately whittles us down, but if we live fully, with passion and with our own principles, what we lose is just the extraneous stuff, so what is left is just your essence, and that can be a beautiful thing. William Ricketts, even into his nineties, had the boldest, purest, most penetrating eyes, and though his voice was thin he still spoke strongly about the spirituality inherent in the natural world, about how the way we treat nature is also the way we treat ourselves. But he spoke most powerfully through his sculptures, loving ceramic renderings of people (mostly aborigines) and animals with lifelike, haunting expressions, set in his sanctuary among the lushness of a subtropical rainforest garden. Insects buzz by your head and mist drips from the ferns. The whole sanctuary is a work of art, a loving collaboration between nature and one sweet man. Not your usual white box gallery.