This video shows the process I employ in making the wall sculptures--from making a sketch to the
final assembly and hanging the art.
(The video is not finished--check back in a week or two.)

 

My art is a non-representational fusion of sculpture and painting.  It consists of a substrate of textural canvas stretched over lightweight plywood forms with sculptural elements attached to this substrate after they, and the background, have been painted and glazed.  Priming, under-painting, metal leaf, and multiple layers of translucent and transparent glazes, often metallic or pearlescent, combine to achieve depth of color and value.  I use highlights and shadow, reflection and refraction, to present a kinetic experience as the lighting or viewing angle changes.  The pieces are designed to be wall mounted and recent works are thin edged, floating off the surface of the wall.  They are constructed and finished to a high standard, back and front.

When I started this series several years ago, I considered them to be sculptural paintings.  The painted designs were closely related to the shape of the stretched canvas and the shapes and textures of the attached elements, but I had the mindset, at that time, that the painting was the dominant element and the shaped canvas and attached sculptural elements played more of a supporting role.  I think this was reinforced by the fact that all of my art was rectangular and constructed by building the shapes up from a flat substrate with edges of a uniform thickness.

At the point that I decided to break away from the rectangle, the sculptural component of the work took precedence over the painting and I began to work toward a much lighter structure that floats a few inches off the wall.  The technique I developed for constructing a thin outer edge allows the perimeter of the piece to be a free form in both outline and depth.  When I am constructing the pieces on the work table, when all the pieces have been finished, primed white and loosely assembled, they seem to me to be very architectural.  The painted elements are still important to me but I comfortably regard the most recent pieces as wall sculptures.

Most of the shapes I use are softly curved, reminiscent of many shapes found in nature.  I am not attempting to create abstractions of seedpods or leaves; these are just the shapes I find most satisfying.  I consider my work non-representational and, while the viewer may see an abstraction of something, it is never my intention.  I resist giving the pieces representational names as that guides the viewer to search the piece for the representation of the name.  I prefer to believe that the art I create is the vision in my mind, the art you see is the vision in your mind. 

I enjoy the process of experimentation, discovery, the exploitation of available technology, and continuous refinement.  Each piece more or less carries within it the seeds of the next piece and is a representation of one particular moment on my creative journey.

My goal is to create objects of beauty, like giant pieces of jewelry, not to be worn but to be displayed on the wall and enjoyed.

 

             

 

 

Back