Artist Statement

“I consider myself extremely lucky. Every day, I have the opportunity to construct a world of memory, humor and stories through my work in the studio. Best of all, I live in that world and invite others in. There is nothing I would rather do and no place I would rather be. My life and art are best when on a continuous roll, including everything I desire—love, happiness, good friends, success, and a working concrete mixer.”

I am a self-taught artist. Throughout my life, my artistic interests have ranged from the formal to the naive to the outrageous. In childhood, my role model was my great-aunt Trude, a lovable and eccentric outsider artist who worked beyond the confines of the mainstream art world. Aunt Trude followed a personal vision that drove her to make art until she died at the age of 90. It was her influence that launched my lifetime search for grottoes, visionary environments, and contemporary artists whose personal visions clearly stand apart.
The joy I derive from making art complements my love for collecting an odd assortment of curios that provoke strong memories. I have a lifelong obsession with frequenting garage sales, flea markets and auctions within a hundred-mile radius. This has led to a stockpile of materials for my work: buttons, beads, costume jewelry, shells, glass fruit and flowers, ceramic tiles and many ceramic objects.
My process of working is additive. I start with a narrative, often based on things that happen in my everyday life. I carve people, birds, fish, dogs, carrots, flowers—a whole world from basswood. Often, I use a vintage found object as a model, changing its proportion or meaning as I alter it or carve a version of it. These objects, with their rich trove of memory images, reference the passage of time and its effect on what we remember. Aside from the extravagance of color, surface ornamentation and my ever-present sense of humor, each work tells a story of utopian wishes and dreams, a saga of seduction, duality and temptation.
Although I've been acquiring objects, images and ideas all my life, it seems that only recently has everything—my art, environment and life—come together and merged into a wonderful oneness.