Show May 8-June 6, 2015
1070 7th Ave, Marion, IA 52302, USA
319.573.2537
Art isn't something I grew up with, or grew into, it's something that happened to me. Near the age of thirty, and after a long personal decline, I randomly picked up a pencil to try drawing. The result as immediate and surprising, to myself and others. With new-found gusto for life I rarely laid my pencils aside for two solid years, stopping only for work, food, and sleep. I never thought about selling my work, I did it because it made me happy. It still does. Art is my fulfillment, my therapist, my Prozac, and a gift from God for which I am grateful every day.
It is in sculpture where I seem to have found my truest form of expression. I rarely start a clay project with more than a very simple idea. It seems if I try to exert too much control I'll mess it up. Working in clay is a two-way street, the clay has as much input as I do. My current project, which I call "The Village", is a collection of whimsical structures. Each piece is developed from a simple starting point such as - "I want to make a house, about so big, by so big"- and as I work, the structure tells me how it wants to look. My goal is to seek those perfect symmetries found in nature -nothing square, every line flowing into or around others - and I find this possible only by listening to the clay. My work in pencil, or oils, is very different: I sketch, I plan, I aim at realism. But with clay I want to create an alternate world, as would an author, and yet a work that can be seen and touched - where quaint innocence pervades and dreams can be real - a place of charm, where the viewer may long to stop, and dwell, and exist.