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BACKGROUNDI was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, lived there until I was nine and then moved to rural New Mexico. From my teens on, I bounced around from Colorado to Vermont to Alaska and finally to Portland, Oregon where I live and work in a 100 year old warehouse close to the center of the city. MEDIAI work in whatever media is appropriate to the project. Aluminum reflects the color and light that is around it. Bronze absorbs light and wants to dominate a space. Wood can be very silent but warm and steel cold and loud. Those are generalizations of course, and some of my most satisfying moments come from forcing a material to take on a personality with which it is not comfortable. WORKMy work all stems from two different levels of decision making. The top/conceptual level is a specific idea I impose onto the series of sculptures I am currently working on. That idea will alter the physical forms so my intent can be discerned if the viewer sees the series together and spends enough time looking. Those “top layer” ideas usually come from current events or some social concern I feel passionate about. Underlying the current conceptual concerns are deeper ways of working that tend to affect the aesthetic qualities of the work. I just really like the way some things look, like pushing organic forms into industrial forms or giving a sculpture little hints of life and personality. Nature’s processes result in some amazing physical displays, but I have always found that I am most interested when I see how humans have interacted with nature. When I hike in the country my eye is always drawn to the old evidence of human activity. Things like a crumbling wall, falling away into the earth, or a rusty pile of tin cans with plants sprouting up through them fascinate me. So my art making decisions are all influenced by these underling interests and preferences that I have built up over a lifetime. When I layer new content onto those almost reflexive ways of thinking, the new shapes just appear out of my hands while I watch. I make art because I feel incomplete if I’m not making art. There are other activities that can satisfy the creative part of my brain, but nothing else that can satisfy my hands and my brain at the same time. Resume |