As I was working I noticed that the way I designed the differential gearing actually created a spare drive that sat directly below the emperor's feet, or where they would be if he were to sit in the chariot.
Kit Williams

Having designed and built several clocks during my career it suddenly occurred to me that when you look at the face of a clock both hands have the same center.
Kit Williams

He was so tenacious he defied the distraction of women by refusing to have them in his presence, just as later in life he denied his blindness by calling for more and more candles.
Kit Williams

I made every single piece myself, each individual component, so it was quite time consuming.
Kit Williams

I started by looking at what others had done before me. You see, over the years there have been attempts by many different people to reconstruct the chariot.
Kit Williams

I think most artists find it difficult to part with their work but it's the parting that keeps us alive and keeps us working. In the case of the chariot, although it's been sold I actually still have it, just in another form.
Kit Williams

I took lots of photographs and had planned to write a treatise on how it worked, but I quickly got bored with that idea and wrote a scientific fairy tale instead.
Kit Williams

If we listen human instinct actually tells us what we need, but advertising makes us want things we don't need and things we can't have.
Kit Williams

If you look closely you can see that they are all interconnected, symbolic of a never-ending circle in which it is simply impossible for the dog to catch the rabbit.
Kit Williams

In practical terms the South Pointing Chariot was a simple direction finder. It could have been made to point in any direction - north, south, east or west.
Kit Williams


In the fairy tale the painting represents the here and now. The book is actually divided into five sections, through which the key character, the muse, leads us.
Kit Williams

Newton, of course, was the inventor of differential calculus so his place in the tale is quite special.
Kit Williams

Once upon a perfect night, unclouded and still, there came the face of a pale and beautiful lady. The tresses of her hair reached out to make the constellations, and the dewy vapours of her gown fell soft upon the land.
Kit Williams

She's not happy about the life she is living but to jump through the hoop would mean to succumb to death.
Kit Williams

The chariot was purchased by a private collector who took it home to New York. I take pleasure in knowing that it was built to last for at least a thousand years.
Kit Williams

The dog and the rabbit are telling us not to chase unattainable material goals.
Kit Williams

The dog, the rabbit and the hoop all feature in the painting, and take the place of the orrery.
Kit Williams

The engine of ancient society was religion but the engine of contemporary society, as I see it, is advertising.
Kit Williams

The hoop is there to remind us not to jump through it, not to submit to someone else's control.
Kit Williams

The original item looked like a little hand cart with the figure of a man mounted on a platform between the wheels. The man's outstretched arm always pointed south.
Kit Williams