Portfolio
Every Direction has its Point
Throughout my career I have explored many directions to find the perfect expression of my Art. It has been more of a progression than a an evolution. Though I have never deviated far from Wood Sculpture as my main modus of expression, my road has been more of a Progression than an Evolution. I make this distinction because “Evolution” occurs through the influence of outside forces whereas “Progression” occurs through an inner drive – Direction. Though both of these motivations have given my work purpose, my transitions have occurred more through the latter having been the greater impetus. However; Finding that direction involves exploration and I believe exploration to be the counterforce to stagnation. “Stagnation” has been the stick, while “Exploration” has always been carrot. So, currently there are four areas of exploration I am pursuing in my work. I divide these subsequently, into categories as defined below, which may serve you to understand variances in the directions I currently work. Click on the title of each of the following areas to get a brief synopsis of each with an example. While each of these styles may occur to some extent to carry influence in all of my work. The various categories here, show work where the designated element carries the dominant weight.
Mobius Influence
Sculpture can never be appreciated fully from a single viewpoint. It has to be taken in more as ribbon of highway weaving down a road in time. The entire road cannot be viewed at once, it has to be visited piecemeal. With sculpture repositioning ones self for each view requires time for the repositioning. Therefore and likewise, to take in an entire sculpture it must be imagined by the viewer collectively, as a series of snapshots, which then, albeit unconsciously, are reserved in the mind and reassembled with some modicum of imagination as a sum of parts rather than as singular form. Within this characterization of my observed, “presence” of sculpture, lies my reason for my continued fascination with it as a vehicle for my creative expression.
For my personal foray into the examination of this concept I have centered on the enigmatic Mobius Strip. Here I attempt to project the feeling of constant motion in projecting my work as never resting, i.e. continuous rather than static. The motive is to put the viewer in a off balance state but at the same time seeking balance.
Not everything in this category represents a mobius strip, but its influence is at the root of the continuity of flow I look for in my work. The idea is that the “whole” can be only be fully understood through the collective snapshot memories the view has collected over the time spent viewing the work. The viewer then reassembles the sculpture in their mind much more like a story that has been told to them. In fashion – “I’ve looked at life from both sides now, From up and down still somehow, It’s life’s illusions I recall, I really don’t know life at all” — Joni Mitchell
Motion in Mass
This is a variation of the concept given above in the description of the “Mobius Influence”. Think lazily laden massive molten flows moving with the speed of a glacier. Not unlike the forms presented in a lava lamp. In these forms I like to generate a relaxed state of mind, I see the forms frozen in motion, or are they. Settling. Giving into their own weight. Sliding down in the “easy-chair”. Giving in to gravity and whatever transition it may require. Generally there is much less of the interior exposed than in the preceding Mobius forms. The elements that make up this work are thicker, giving the whole a heavier weight. The emphasis is toward melting or melding together, of multiples combining and be coming one. Unification, capitulation, acquiescence, submission.
Bridging Reality
My position has always been that In Art- “Nothing is purely Abstract” and conversely “Nothing is entirely Real”. In essence any object taken on face value is abstract if you have never seen it before. But since most objects around us have an identity by very fact they are an “object”, makes them real. Keeping that in mind, I come to my sculpture category – “Bridging Reality”. The focus here is rooted in the “twixt” of things. Intertwining, then, is at the heart of this category. By melding reality with the abstract I am producing with a mid ground merging the two “realities”.
Tension in Texture
Touch rules in Texture, and wood abounds with texture so being able to touch sculpture is an integral part to enjoying it. So when I delve into texture, for becomes the vehicle for it. Form gives over to texture in providing the major impact to whatever I devise is this category.