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"I work primarily in bronze, life-size. I am most interested in creating public art, but I also do portraiture and private commissions for homes and gardens.
I see my work as communicative. That is, I believe in the importance of the viewer's role in the creative process, and work toward interaction with it.
At work on Sadako, 1989
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Subject matter in my work relates to human experience, relationships, and desires. The use of figures clarifies my intent. I avoid idealization, and rather try to represent humanity as I find it. I hope this lends my work some of the power of truth.
I work with narrative tableuxs, in which figures relay ideas and emotions through their poses, expressions, and gestures. My compositions rely upon relationships of line and form to establish rythms within the piece as well as between it and its environment.
I feel that public sculpture should offer a subtle invitation to the viewer, rather than to forcibly gain attention only to shortly disappoint. My narrative ideas are most often based on occurances which would be likely to take place at the site: every day benal realities to which the viewer can easily relate through common experience. I work toward tuning my work to its environment, making it inconspicuous through a sense of belonging on the site.
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An artist's life can be an adventure, and it is a rewarding career in many ways. But it's a lot of hard work, at least the way I do it, and I think most people over romanticize it. I suppose many artists do too. I see myself as a craftsman, not some great guru.
Artists have a need to practice and to express themselves, and in doing so they express the culture around them,but I don't feel we create the culture, only record it.
When I became a sculptor it wasn't because I felt I was a supragenius, or that I had been called to deliver some revelation to the world: I just had to make things; and I admired and wished to emulate the things that others before me had made.
Some of the finest sculptures ever created, in ancient friezes, or on the facades of cathedrals were made by carvers who just did their job, and then started again; and even great artists have made bad pieces.You just have to keep on making things.
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Patina on Elvis, 1992
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I've been at this now for about seventeen years, and it's still a struggle to keep afloat. It's a feast or famine existance if you've got a family. I guess I can't complain, because I can at least make a living at it, where most of us have to go work at 7-11 or something to get by. There again I think people tend to over romanticize about how great it must be to be an artist.
"Then again maybe I'm all wet" (gratuitous Seattle joke)
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