Eleven Plus One

Stanley Mouse

15” x 26” x 1 1/8”

Cherry 2025

When I first saw this, I didn’t think “anniversary piece.” I thought—this is what remains after everything else has been said.

After sixty years, Mouse doesn’t reach for more. He pares it back. The lettering—so deeply tied to an era, a movement, a way of seeing—stands with a kind of earned confidence. And the rose, reduced but unmistakable, feels less like decoration and more like a signature… or maybe a quiet acknowledgment of where it all began.

There’s something about this piece that resists excess. It doesn’t ask for attention. It holds it.

Carving it felt different from the others. Less about translating image into wood, more about listening—letting the lines land where they needed to, without pushing them further than they wanted to go. That restraint became part of the work.

As part of this collection, it doesn’t compete with the earlier pieces—it settles them. It marks a point where the language is fully formed, and nothing more needs to be added.

That’s why it belongs here. And why it stands slightly apart.