Lapis lazuli, oil, silver, manganese and gesso converge in a crucible of transformation. In this painting, two orbs press against the surface, reaching outward: one dense with lapis, the other drawn in densely reflective silverpoint. Both lie submerged beneath a veil of lapis glaze, where finely ground pigment mingles with rocky particles. The surface holds these forces in suspension as the orbs resist and echo one another: darkness absorbing, blue radiating, silver veiled faintly beneath. A crucible is a vessel: a chamber of heat and pressure, where matter alters yet persists. Crucible is not an image but a site of containment and transformation, a field where stone becomes colour, metal becomes trace and pigment becomes a veil. The work embodies compression rather than release, holding within it the tension of transformation — a stillness charged with the possibility of change.