Blue Whales; oil on wood with LED light; 2021, SOLD

I don’t know where, when this started but as far back as I recall, I’ve always been making things.  I must have been 6 or 7 when I made the ‘I love you’ valentine for my mother.  Was that the first thing?- probably not, but it’s the oldest physical thing I still have- thank you mom.

Despite my hazy memory with details, I know I worked on a myriad of ‘artworks’ between the 1963 ‘folded’ heart piece and the first decorated pot rack that I made for my wife around 1990.  That piece evolved out of necessity; our too small apartment.  Having little storage space, I made a kitchen pot rack which I decorated with images and elements from the kitchen; hammered flatware and painted wooden cutouts of food and wine, abstract whimsical shapes and mythological figures.

That was fun and I went on to make other pot racks- which quickly became a problem for the too small apartment.  All the while the decoration became more elaborate. I was intrigued with the possibilities of assembled pictures using the wooden cutouts and before long the utilitarian aspect fell away completely.  

I was and continue to be fascinated by Cubism.  I break up an image into discrete parts then recombine them literally in 3 dimensions using the convention of topographic layering, not unlike an architect’s model. This deconstructing and formal analysis is interesting in itself and then you layer on the matter of Time, and that our perception of anything is always momentary, always changing, always affected by time.  Any representation of a thing is just a snapshot in time- it was true only for that split second.

This idea rests with me even when I’m working on more conventional 2-dimensional pieces, whether that be a portrait with oil on canvas or watercolor and graphite or the photo assemblies. They are fixed images of people, animals, trees and plant materials, ordinary, everyday places and objects but they are anything but static.