I see powerful visual connections among
the human form, the planet Earth, the solar system, the universe and
life at the microscopic level. In my work, the form of the human body
becomes a metaphor for life along this spectrum of differing scales.
For example, to me the egg can also be a planet or a seed or a cell,
all four being basically the same functioning entity viewed from different
vantage points. The molecular level within the body mirrors the form
of the universe beyond. I see the emotional and physical energy within
a person as part of the same energy that keeps our planet circling the
sun. This enormous and interconnected story is the one I tell in my
work and it is embodied by the metamorphic quality of my primary material,
marble.
Part of what makes marble a compelling medium for me
is its history. Hundreds of millions of years ago sea creatures lived,
died and left their remains on the sea-bed. Over millions of years these
deposits built up in thickness and weight, creating limestone. As the
Earth’s tectonic plates shifted, collided and lifted each other
up, the world’s mountain ranges were created. The immense pressure
and heat from this movement metamorphosed the limestone into marble
while raising it to the mountain peaks. The Galisteo Basin, where I
live and work, is an ancient sea-bed lifted, along with the Rocky Mountains,
to about 6,500 feet above sea-level. Spanning the millennia, stone sculpture
all over the world has been and will be eroded by wind and rain, gradually
returning to the sea-bed. I believe my sculptures and their stories
are in confluence with the natural life journey of marble.
As a medium, I’m enchanted by the inherent surprises I
find when carving marble, some of which are: color, light, crystal structure
and veining. And, after the initial shock, it never fails to amaze and
delight me when the stone breaks and requires a change in course. I
also appreciate the challenge of having to think inside-out, since the
making of stone sculpture is a process of removal and discovery with
no turning back. The physical process of carving also gives me an emotional
connection to other artists throughout time.
The most powerful art for me has always involved the human figure.
The stone sculpture of the Olmec, Aztec, Zapotec and Cambodian people
as well as the Indian cave sculpture of Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh,
are older examples of art that deeply move me. Other influential sculptors
for me are Bernini, Michelangelo, Rodin, Camile Claudel, Giacometti,
Henry Moore, Francisco Zuniga, Allan Houser and Novello Finotti. As
my understanding of their work deepens, I realize that expanding my
knowledge of human expression is limitless.
It is deeply satisfying for me to think that I can study the
human form for the rest of my life and always have more to learn. In
my work I consider anatomy in all its reaches, from the structure and
choreography of the bones and the miracle of movement and emotional
expression to as far afield as the human genome and on through quantum
physics and chaos theory as each relate to the human body. From my perspective,
this entire continuum of scale from infinitely large to the sub-atomic
level, flows back into my sculpture. With this in mind, some of the
things about the process of sculpture that delight me the most are:
the body in motion; the exquisite balance between the expression of
the face and the expression of the hands and, of great personal significance,
the creative mobius-strip of my hand-of-flesh making the hand-of-stone.
Underlying all of my work is my need to tell the stories of creation
and life through the human form.
(View
Biographical Information)
