I was 21 and a Fine Arts student. During a trip to Spain I saw this wooden mortar  (fig. 1-3) in an antique store at Toledo and was thunderstruck. Although I had very little money I could geht this magic piece of wood. I was touched by the perfect form, balance, function and Gebrauchsspuren . And until today it has this perfect beauty for me. It is so undemanding, its an object that already Don Quixote might have seen in an La Mancha- pub. Carved in one piece out of a cylindrical chunk of wood (stone oak ?) it reminds me of cycladic idols with their symmetrical bodies, small waist and delicately shaped arm. In the late sixties I started a series of sculptures with the characteristic handle. I never realized that before. Probably meeting this  magic mortar it was like an echo of some interior shapes, an answer on unasked questions- my questions . I am convinced that everybody has experienced this kind of echo and fascination just looking  at an innocent object.