bio

 

For as long as I can remember  I have made things.  Even before I could read I was making model cars and airplanes and while I liked cars and airplanes it was as much about the challenge of putting all the parts together to become something.  Model cars gave way to skateboards and  bicycles and then on up the food chain to real cars.  Of course there were other things along the way.  I always had an interest in art, not so much drawing and painting as craft, like learning to silver solder and make silver and turquise jewelry when I was 12.  In high school I  didn't take more than a couple of art classes so I suppose it was a surprise to some when I ended up earning an MFA in spatial art from San Jose State University.  But my education didn't stop there.   I completed a four year apprenticeship in wood patternmaking at a commercial sand foundry.  Through it all I have continued to make things.  And I say things because that's what it has been, sometimes it's a sculpture sometimes a pair of earrings or a wooden salad bowl.   A lot of things have come out of my shop,  in a lot of different materials.

While I continue to make things the latest has been a series of mixed media wall mounted sculptures and they range from being all wood to all metal but most often are a combination of several materials.  This is nothing new for me really since out of the four pieces of sculpture in my MFA exhibition three were mounted on the wall and the materials included:  wood, welded steel, welded stainless steel, fiberglass , cast bronze, cast aluminum , and wax.  I tend to choose materials for their color or texture which results in more of a composition rather than a mixture of materials.  This is not as simple as it sounds because while I am working on a sculpture  the color is often very different from what it will be when it is finished, but in my mind I have made that material choice knowing what color it will become when it is finished. 

 

Each item in this list is a technique I use and I've linked each to its own page with some pictures in an effort to try and explain what in some cases can take many years to learn.

Urban salvage lumber

Wood fabrication

Sand casting metal

Vacuum casting metal

Metal fabrication

Patinated bronze

Acid finished steel