Over the last year I have kept a "sketchbook" of sorts, which I carve out and sculpt within. Here is one of the pages.

Working with wood-- I was originally constructing an armature for a plaster piece, but decided that the personality of the wood itself was too valuable to cover up. So I continued the piece, refining the figurative form with wood and paint.

A study of the planes of portraiture, in three-dimensional painting.

Some more gestural work. This one is made from piano keys.

Some old fruit. There's a little gothic humor in this ceramic composition of animated tangerines. Beyond that, though, my concern is for the pattern of the shapes, and for the relationship between the negative and positive forms. 

And here are some details. I like to be able to see the tool marks in clay processes- to me it is the equivalent of the brushstroke in a painting. 

My distorted self portrait. It began as a drawing on illustration board in which I exaggerated my own proportions. I then cut and reassembled the pieces of the drawing, mounting them in a three-dimensional collage that further distorts the image. 

This one has it's own sense of humor- I call it "The Impostor."

An old piece- this was an early exploration of conveying the idea of movement in space. It also got me thinking about how to create an assemblage piece from found objects.

In the vein of abstracting architectural form, I formed this piece out of heavy paper stock. It is intended as a mobile, a four-section, hanging piece, but the images here are views of the two halves of the piece, one from the outside, where the forms are positive, the other from the inside, where the forms are negative.

Some architectural modeling- The first example is a realistic attempt to design a complex architectural form given the environmental circumstances of a steep grade. While the piece is more compositional than functional, it does not contain the abstractions of the second piece, which is based off of architectural form but modified and rearranged to form a more dynamic composition.

A further piece in this series based upon the figurative gesture. I re-approached the literal and focused on the critical designs of the sculpting itself. This embodies the idea of figurative assemblage to me. 

Here is a new piece which makes use of scale and tension to achieve its purpose.  I have included a detail of the figure for the purposes of clarity.

And here is the single slide that I use in portfolios:

This piece was a little challenge to myself- I was told not to sculpt snakes, because there are far too many people who roll a piece of clay into a tube and call it a snake. So, I set out to fashion an asp that would live up to standards.

For these next two pieces, I have included (at least for one of them) a second photograph to illustrate the concern for working "in the round." I do understand David Smith's contention that a sculpture has a single intended viewpoint, and indeed I do have an ideal view in mind when I work, but I also understand that the piece needs to, from any angle, support the idea conveyed by the main face.

These three sculptures mark the beginning of a new series I am beginning in a three-dimensional format. The series is based upon the notion of the figurative gesture: sometimes represented by a physical human figure, sometimes suggested by other means. I am using a majority of found materials in these sculptures; the idea of assemblage to me is exciting, as each individual piece retains elements of its old character even when the final form has its own unity.

This trio is my attempt to liken the forms of the natural landscape to the form of the human figure. The exploration continues from a more literal exploration in the first piece, to a more abstracted form in the second, to a increased emphasis on suggestion in the third. 



These two pieces, which combine to form a diptych, were  painted after being questioned on my opinion of what is beautiful art, and what is ugly art. Later, looking at a sparrow hatchling flung from its nest, I remarked on it's simultaneous grace and horror in death. So here is my response: the first piece is beauty, the second is ugliness.

Acrylic on Canvas
9x11"

Acrylic on Canvas
8x11"