biography

There is still a battle that rages within whenever I stand before a bare armature: how far to take the realism? How far to take the abstraction? Obey the rules or flaunt them? If I stay with realism in a piece like SOMBRA for instance, how do I portray a bird in flight, without using gravity nullification? A flying bird's wing does not brush the ground, or rocks, or tree branches, or water without undesirable consequences. This is when I really envy painters. In this case I looked under the flying hawk, and noticed that its flying shadow was touching the earth. In fact the shadow glided effortlessly over gravel, grass, water, trees, and rocks, only darkening them momentarily. Perhaps by de-emphasizing the realism of the hawk, augmenting the presence of its shadow, I could create a bridge between reality and imagination, known and unknown. At the point of fusion is a brilliant flash of gold, shining from the crevice between worlds. This is spontaneity in sculpture.

Still, the question of how real within reality? How much detail on the body of a fast, flying bird? What do you see when you watch birds in flight? Every feather? My eyes aren't that good anymore; I glimpse a few details depending on where my eyes focus. So I've decided to detail the sculpture that way: some feathers are minutely detailed while others are a blur.

I discovered that this technique works for fur as well. In creating ARRIVAL, I use this same shadow device. I fuse the spiral motion of a descending cougar with the echo of a spiral world thus illuminating the cougar’s environment.

Remember years ago, when I decided to ignore the transparency of water? At some point in the creation of FISH NET it became necessary for stainless steel to acquire transparency. A Night Heron perched on a swaying dock line needed the emphasis of human presence. Humans needed a reminder of heron’s presence.

Where is our most visible interface with the natural world these days? Where is our impact? It is our pollution, the shadow trailing behind us. The fish net carelessly discarded, caught on swaying dock lines hanging beneath an aging pier. This net stretched by current, becomes wavery, inlaid bronze, as it recedes into the depths. A hidden trap. Suspense. Tension is generated not only between the heron and its unseen prey, but also by the bird's own unwary proximity to entanglement and death.

Brushed stainless steel has become my favorite device for suspending flying objects in space. Outdoors, it reflects the color of the sky, enhancing the illusion. THE NEST was commissioned by the town of Breckenridge in 1998, and installed in June, 2000. It is a sculpture about the fusion of ideas coalescing out of thin air into a coherent structure. It is about thoughts moving up from the depths of our unconscious to form around an idea, like a pearl forming around a grain of sand. It is about people gathering at a crossroads of interest to become a community. The branches become closer together, more real, as they near the focus of the sculpture: the nest, where the branch shapes form a lens, a mandala, or spiral that draws you into the vortex of archetypal symbols buried in our psyche.