Artist Statement
Woodworking moves me, prods me and intimidates me-still so much to learn. It has delivered the highest points in my life and walloped me to the lowest. Woodworking has always been my drug of choice.
The last few years have delivered a hornets' nest of challenges and I appear to be present, ambulatory and in one piece. I should learn from all these events, to pace oneself, find that balance. The only way I can make sense of it all is to stay lost within work's habitat and respect the quiet fury of creativity. I don't understand how to hedge my bets within that process. I wish I could.
Much of my work is centered on nature's small wonders: leaves, flowers, fruit, sea shells, nuts, etc.. Mountains and oceans overwhelm, I don't have a chance. An apple or walnut I can grasp in my hand-there's that physical and visceral intimacy. They're so perfect: shape, texture, color. Damn!
I don't attempt an exact replication of these items within my work, but rather use these miraculous forms as a starting point in the design process. I might take the rose thorn and incorporate it into a chair leg, use the voluptuousness of a pear for a coffee table and the movement of a leaf edge for a desk.
I like using solid wood for its intrinsic virility and sensuality. You can pound it, torch it, grind it, glue it and cut it this way and that. Solid wood maintains its dignity and beauty throughout. The wood is only half the story though; it's the design that brings that dignity and that beauty to the dance.
I keep flitting around the edges of bronzing my work or creating them in fiberglass. Financially it makes sense. Maybe I will, probably sooner than later. I just need to resolve sharing the process. I like to inhale and ingest the complete project from the first spoonful to the last burp.
When I complete a piece and think that it's pretty darn good and that I'm pretty darn good, I get taken down fast the next time I see a flower or that leaf rustling in the breeze. I realize the best I can do is match mother nature, but rarely if ever outpace her. On those days I do come up even with her, I'm as happy as a kid with a double dip, chocolate ice cream cone. |
