on work: henry moore

"The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to,

something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life.

And the most important thing is -- it must be something you cannot possibly do!"

Henry Moore

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When Moore saw granite poking through the ground in woods, his eyes took the stone in, texture and weight. I watched him as he spoke sometimes, holding a pebble's weight in his stubby fingers, rolling it back and forth, loving it and taking it in through the nerves under his skin. I watched him absently rearrange objects on a table -- ashtrays, boxes, pencils -- and alter their relationships in space. When he looked at a sheep or a cloud; or at salt and pepper shakers on a supper table; or at an elephant's skull; or at the founder's flatbed trailer; or at the photographer's Nikon, he saw edges and shapes and weights. Form-perception filled the constant breathing moments of his dedicated life.

poet Donald Hall on Henry Moore, from the beautiful Life Work