Skip to main content

Biography

Balancing space, mass, texture, color, line, pattern, weight, and proportion is a visual pleasure. Harmony is something I feel; analysis is secondary.

While I may have a general idea in mind when creating a sculpture, the passages that constitute the whole are a surprise to me. Any durable material is fair game in this process, although steel is usually best for actual connections between mediums. I grab elements that are near at hand, realizing that chance and spontaneity are keys to accessing fresh visual territory. This maundering exploration often involves stumbling corrections and meandering whimsy, but eventually concludes with a satisfying map of the journey.

There is no substitute for handmade objects; emotions and character are embedded in the work. Art is a vehicle of expression, a means of encoding our response to the world. I hope my audience appreciates my serious folly, my love of nature and beauty, and enjoys my effort to flirt with the mystery of life.

SOMO Artwork:

“Acrobat”

Steel Sculpture of a figure in a balancing pose

This steel sculpture began in 2015 as a figurative compilation of arms and legs in multiple arrangements. The organic evolution suggested movement and contorted twisting, suggestive of yoga postures or dance. The piece could actually be pushed to balance in six different positions. I thought this might be a fun piece to bring to Burning Man and have people interact with it by pushing it around into different positions while traveling around the playa. Outside of that venue however, I realized there was a real danger of someone getting hurt (it weighed several hundred pounds) and decided I’d better choose a favorite position and weld a permanent base for it. Our son Jake is an amazing athlete who has mastered the ability to balance on one arm, so I chose to show that position. Editing what is not essential is good design practice, and so I removed the extraneous limbs to arrive at a more “normal” figure. Refining of details followed, resulting in a finished sculpture in 2020.

Leave a Reply