A Klein Bottle - excerpt from "Across the Melodies of Change"

In mathematics, the Klein bottle is an example of a non-orientable surface; it is a two-dimensional manifold against which a system for determining a normal vector cannot be consistently defined. Informally, it is a one-sided surface which, if traveled upon, could be followed back to the point of origin while flipping the traveler upside down.

The Klein bottle was first described in 1882 by the German mathematician Felix Klein. It may have been originally named the Kleinsche Fläche ("Klein surface") and then misinterpreted as Kleinsche Flasche (“Klein bottle”). 

(“Klein Bottle,” Wikipedia)

The image of the Klein bottle is in a sense a twin of the motif. For me, it is a motif in itself. It helps to imagine the illusive entity of a creative individual, a student, even if it is yourself. A three-dimensional object which is all surface, a surface which has only one side, which is at the same time its front and back, or its “right” and “wrong” or “left.” It is something that can be experienced in gliding its surfaces, in a glimpse of motion, a vessel that does not contain, because it possesses neither inside nor outside, and yet it is evidently a vessel. It is peculiarly open to the outside, since its every surface is exposed, yet is sealed in itself. It is for me an image and experience of emotional alertness—a necessity in every human conduct, in teaching especially. It is not so much about fragility, the “handle with care” label, for that any glass vessel will do, but the possibility of a repeating, consequential rendezvous, open enough for all participants to change and be changed—to loose borders, and to regain autonomy—to be vessels.