The Artist

I sculpt because its creative excitement is available any time I want to work. It is the perfect companion to the actor's life. 

Much about three dimensional form delights me but I am especially interested in discovering ways to arrest motion so that the eye invents the whole event from that one arrested moment. Faces are particularly interesting in this context. 

I began sculpting in an effort to give full-blown form to the etchings of Jacques Callot, a fifteenth-century artist who captured the bizarre actions of the actors of the Commedia Del Arte. To lift these wild human bodies off the page and have them stand on their own two feet was a kick. I was hooked. 

These first efforts were supported by people who shared my interest in the Commedia Del Arte. This encouraged me to look into other media: paper, plastics, bronze, wood, and finally, bone. 

Over the years, I have remained particularly interested in the human form, faces, and an occasional digression into animal forms. 

Many artists have influenced my work. I have enjoyed the creations of many sculptors but there are two or three who seem to me to have achieved a kind of perfection--Brancusi, Barlach, Lehmbruck--and their visions are often bouncing around in my head. 

Bone is my medium of choice at the moment. The boundaries of the raw material are a terrific stimulus to new solutions. 

Sculpture is for me many things, not the least of which is a way to remain more or less sane. 

The Process

BONE in and of itself is an artistic adventure. 

Nature has solved so many of it’s needs to support, transport, bend, and protect in lovely and graceful ways that I strive to use these solutions to express the forms I envision for the various sculptures. 

The boundaries the materials present are as much a stimulant to imagination as an obstacle to the solution.  Protected from sunlight and water, bone has an unlimited life and a kind of mystical presence that often draws the viewer to desire to touch it.

I have been carving bone for well over 35 years so that its’ many shapes are very familiar to me, but even so I generally live with a particular bone or bones for some time to be sure I am in touch with the ways I can use the bone to fulfill my vision of the sculpture. 

While I have a goal in mind before I begin to cut and shape, I don’t really know how I am going to get there.  The journey from beginning to finished piece is one of many challenges that may simply require careful planning of the next cuts or the search for precisely the right piece of bone to express the form or how can I carve the piece to say something special or unique in the overall form.

In general, I am fascinated by arresting the moment in an action that propels the  viewer into the completion of the action.  While I don’ t always achieve that instant, I am still looking.