Artist's Statement

Here is the artist's statement I am using with my resume these days.

Art as I see it...art as I make it

Art takes simple physical form and finds within it an expression or gesture that offers hints to the heart and soul of the viewer. Art leaves much to the viewer. It never tells all. It never bludgeons the viewer with answers.

It is this teasing at the edges, this suggestive revealing, that empowers art. This evocative interplay of gesture and expression, often elusive, often ambivalent, always open to interpretation, is the challenge for my work.

Art foremost is a collaborative storyteller. As such, it must speak to the viewer...the interpreter. Art without an interpreter is nothing but inventory. Art that leaves none of the storytelling to the viewer is still only inventory.

My art is made with fire and force: hammers and anvils and furnaces and torches. Sometimes, especially with steel, the making is a struggle of maker and material. It is often a battle of elemental forces. This struggle plays out in the surprising delicacy of these works in steel. There is an extra dimension of expressive energy captured by the stubborn resistance of steel against the making. It is a dimension that is informed by my expectations and demands as maker, and as viewer as well.

I usually do not ascribe titles to pieces, since this act would steer the viewer toward my preconceived ideas and thus abort the interaction between the maker and the interpreter. And I am often surprised at the direction that viewers take with a piece. That surprise is the litmus paper for my success.