To me it is a kind of magic that pieces of heavy metal can be shaped and fused, literally trans-formed, by the simple cutting torch and electric welding arc; that they don’t fall apart; that they can defy gravity; that they can appear to be light or in flight. By heating, cutting, pounding, and bending, individual pieces of metal become like notes of music that can be intellectually orchestrated or intuitively improvised to communicate directly with our imagination and emotions. It is through this earthy, direct manipulation and transformation of metal that I explore the language of three dimensional form.
Creating sculpture is like capturing the energy released from collisions of form and space. It is the sense of emerging, converging, containment and transitioning of energy through three dimensions that creates feeling and reaction in the viewer; it is through control of balance, flow, tension, negative space and implied movement that a different energy within each sculpture is cultivated. My work incessantly explores the interaction of spaces and forms on one another and the changing energies and emotional impacts that result.
As well as being fascinated with the interplay of form and space, I am intrigued with the influence of color and surface on the perception of three dimensional form. This is what led me beyond using only unsurfaced and rusted metal, to experiment with painting and chemical patination of steel and bronze. Different methods of adding color and texture can confer a completely different feel to the same shape, and greatly augment the ability to communicate through abstract form.
What is important to me in sculpting is to draw out feeling in people without the constraint of language, intent, or ideas pre-embedded in realistic icons and objects. Although my sculpture often merges new material with industrial detritus and subtly carries the footprints of our technology and culture, attention is not drawn to the past purpose of the materials but rather to the sense of energy, grace and strength that is rooted in their past.
I do not set out to create meaning in my sculptures. Titles insinuate my personal response to each sculpture at the specific moment of naming, but meaning, if it exists, is found uniquely by each viewer.