Artist Statement

 

My work and my life seem to negotiate the boundaries between perception and cognition, between nature and culture, between people and place. There is an interest in studying the relationship between animal nature and our own better human nature, which seeks to inform the work. The materials seek to reconcile the disparities between surface and form in that the markings are the growth of the form itself. I have chosen materials such as marble dust mixes, stone, and glass, which have been worked in both an additive and reductive manner. Most of the work I have done in these materials have been relief pieces where both the illusion of physicality and the physicality of the form come into play.
 
The pieces deal with what touching a form looks like; trying not to make an image of an animal's head but rather what touching the form would look like as it is perceived by my hands. What does touch look like.

Seeing through touch.

 

 

Journal entry at Pilchuck Glass School

As I sit, I realize that the glass is a metaphor for
our effort in life. We are asked to keep a balance in
the center around which our various energies are
constantly turning. These turns must account for the
gravity pulling the weight of a molten changing
circle. Dante bobs his head in a circular motion
listening to the turns and adjusts the movement of the
head with the spirals of his hand. He says he is
listening for the center.

We listen with our body as well as our ears. Our
bodies listen to the movement. Which is a movement of
the sun and the moon turning in relation to each other
as well as the movement of our own energies.

This spiral movement can be studied through the
spiral of the pine cone as it relates to the whole
tree. It can be seen in the spiral on waves as it
relates to the ocean, the hawk wing that rides the sprial currents in the air.  

It can be seen --

If the intelligence of the body that Dante listens
to, meets the mind that wishes to understand these
laws, the heart will appear to open the connection
between the two.

I believe my art navigates these questions.