About My Process

My sculpture uses the physical language of things to arrive at form and message. The process involved in its making is inseparable from its content.

Like most sculptors I know, I’m a scavenger, constantly looking for and gathering bits and pieces, old or new, things that attract me with their stored histories, or things I feel compelled to fabricate in response to images that float through my mind. There is a kind of alchemy at work here. I’m unsure how meaning and form actually come together but I‘m aware that meaning inhabits form. Meaning is already present in the objects I search for, find, construct, reclaim, or modify.

This process of accumulation is my first undertaking and is followed by a period of visual digestion (usually of a peripheral nature) in the studio. Relationships between and among these objects transpire in the background of my awareness. My second task involves creating new relationships by physically arranging these things. I look for specific proximities that lock in tensions to produce a communication or meaning. I find this act of recognition to be the most creative part of my process and works best when I don’t let myself think about the result.

I have found that thinking gets in the way of creating. My work is not theory-based. It is entirely experiential on a sub-conscious level. For me the thinking comes after the making when I’m trying to identify or interpret the significance of the relationships I’ve brought together. At this time I discern implication, which results in title choices, but admit that there must always be additional interpretations.

My process is dependant on my belief in the veneration of the sub-conscious. I find it contradictory that it has been labeled the sub-conscious when in fact I consider it to be my highest self and above my conscious brain activity. I know that my sub-conscious is my truth, incapable of falseness, and to allow it to emerge freely in the work is my intent. I believe the viewer can enter the work if they choose, carrying their own set of reference points, because sub-conscious meaning and symbolism share a collective or universal language, as well as a deeply personal one.