Artist's Statement
We are all artists. The artist is there, awaiting release.
Two things — the hidden artist in all of us and a reverence for all things — guide me as woodworker, sculptor, painter, writer and even in previous lives (biomedical engineer and physicist). The materials I work with (wood, metal, stone and some synthetics) react to me just as I react to them, a reciprocity of reverence. If I see the beauty in a piece of wood, that beauty resonates, growing more magnificent. Wood may not “talk” back but it lets me know how to use it, how to show its best characteristics. These moments of communication are the photosynthesis of my art: the foundation energy that sustains me. Technique, that element somewhat akin to wisdom, comes only when the artist's soul is firmly attached to pen, brush, knife or chisel. Like great improvisational jazz, each brush or chisel stroke is another “note” waiting to be realized. This circle from artist to reverence to materials to tools and back to artist, is an infinite loop. Its driving energy may be the artist, or Mother Nature may be that engine since all elements of tools/artist/materials are hers. Ulysses said, “I am a part of all that I have known.” Quantum physics says the same. Does the artist create the art, or vice versa? When I work with wood, fabricating sculpture or furniture, I am just a tool of Nature holding a tool of steel, feeling my way into my heart and that of a tree.
Certain elements reappear in my work: flowing forms, curves, the contrast of mixed materials (stone and wood, wood and metal, etc.), river imagery and water. 40 years as kayaker and backpacker have certainly added their influence. Wild things, diversity, human insignificance in the universe, all serve as inspiration.
