Russell is a sculpture that stands wonderfully well on its own, but when placed within the “Check Out” diorama he becomes the psychic opposite of Estralita, the iPod dancer. The two of them balance the world – the yin and the yang. The iPod dancer is almost boundless, barely contained in her garments and full of ecstatic joy. Russell’s clothes are so exact you can cut a finger on the ironed
creases in his pants. His garb impresses with upper crust, English perfection, but you know underneath everything is tightly clinched. Estralita isn’t interested in knowing any more than necessary – street smarts and attitude will get her where she wants to go. Russell is a finely educated man who would be most comfortable in Oxford or some rarified place where intellect is real power. He started young with Latin and Greek and has worked a life time to create libraries in his brain. Unfortunately his type is as under siege as Harold Bloom – the poor man trying valiantly to teach Shakespeare to a twitter
generation.

As with most high-strung and neurotic figures I have done, Russell has settled into a room in my brain. Whenever I hear someone say “Why did that man use a complicated word that we have to look up in a dictionary – why not just use simple words everyone understands? – well, that is when I hear his cold, crisp retort “Then why don’t we just get rid of color and paint the world black and white? Who needs the mental exertion of nuanced hues?” As the world falls further and further into the next

Dark Age, or better yet, an Age of Dimness, it is the Russells of this world who hold on with every stretched and stressed sinew. They may not be pleasant – often pompous, elitist, and aristocratic - but Russell and Estralita balance each other like ancient dualist Gods. In some traditions the Opposite Deities marry and give birth to the world. I don’t see these two doing that. Estralita might eat him and lay the world as an egg. If Russell had his way, he would smite her and all her kind into oblivion, leaving the world masculine, secure and reclining in a leather chair discussing Descartes over cigars and brandy.