ART

Patterns overlap through all forms of life. I work with wood and metal because they resonate with me and with each other. I see them as physical lines, another form of drawing. Although the internal process is always and can only be personal, when the sculpture is effective the response is universal and a connection is established.

My base and history is derived from drawing. I’ve always done it and will always do it. In the past I made wood cuts for printmaking but quickly became more interested in the block of wood than with the idea of reproduction. From here the sculpture began.

Before an action is taken and the chisel is lifted, there is long observation. All good relationships require the ability to listen. I observe until I feel something, and then I draw again. Sometimes the path is immediate, sometimes it takes years. The process is visceral and laborious yet the end result is refined. Shapes and movements not yet exhausted continue from one piece to another until they evolve or fade away. Each individual is linked to a predecessor as the work is all related and interconnected.

Sources from nature come with their own history. There is always a visible pattern of storms, death, separations and growth, much like us. I am interested in the connections, the intersections and the over-lapping lines. I see the harmony and the destruction between the city and its environment, friend and foe, all inseparable. I have an appreciation of contrast that has merged into one. Saw marks weave in and out through soft grain. Roads break in the pattern of a rivers. Trees grow into fences and on top of abandoned rooftops. I am compelled to intertwine bright, shiny colorson patterns of nature, preserving only the artificial. Steel becomes harmonious with rigidity, found as it would be at the bottom of an arroyo. The forms I create are minimal. I work to keep what is essential without losing the sensual. I look to create simple lines capable of evoking the source that is greater than me.

This is a search to accentuate the beauty of irregularities. It is about extracting, expressing and responding to a moment in time. It is a celebration of the illuminated and the decomposing. I feel an obligation to do this works as a means of honoring the life that I see. We are here temporarily, and I believe the attempt to expose beauty is enough. These sculptures are documents of my existence, they must be abstract.