walking stick for William Bartram

Working on a new piece for the Center for Art in Wood's upcoming tribute to the Bartram Gardens. I am creating a walking stick based on the botanical illustrations of William Bartram. Lots of detail work, but am loving the progress so far. Here's a few sneak preview shots--I expect to have the completed piece professionally shot this summer before I send it off.

umami

Here's a new body of work I created for the Craft in American Study Center's "Food as Subject for Craft" show. It's a grouping of wall pieces that are more directly food-inspired. I call this group Umami.

spiral jetty!

Finally checked this baby off my bucket list! A visit to Robert Smithson's swan song, the Spiral Jetty. It was so much fun taking a winter road trip. The roads were clear and a light dusting on the mountains provided for spectacular landscapes.  Here's a handful of my favorite images I took on our journey.

this one's gonna be a biggie!

I've recently landed a nice public commission where I'll create a 7 foot totem for the new light rail line that will link Portland and Milwaukee.  There will be a walking path at the Milwaukee end, and six artists have been commissioned to create works from trees being cleared for this light rail expansion--and installed on a little walking path.  My piece is honoring the animals both wild and domesticated of this region, as well as the tools that were used by early settlers.  So for now I have this giant log in my driveway!  I don't plan to start carving until next summer since it's messy outdoor work. Stay tuned for the wood chips as I push into new artistic territory!

Arfabet at Velvet da Vinci!

Here's a few images from the Arfabet installation at Velvet da Vinci Gallery

mission accomplished.

Here's some images from my OSU installation for their new Student Success Center. With the help of my awesome father, we were able to get ten of them installed on Thursday, and returned early Friday morning to put the final two in.  I am really excited about the way they look and hope they will inspire students for years to come.  I am also including my statement for the piece, borrowed from the original Cumulate installation.

“Cumulate” is about the moods that move in and out of my psyche, like big cumulus clouds in a summer sky.

An inspiration for this show was the emotional chemistry of the human brain. It fascinates me how my brain can tell us we feel sad one day, and then have the capability to feel completely elated the next. Clouds are an apt metaphor for emotions because both can take on so many different forms, and change so quickly. They may be thick or thin, have well defined edges or be very diffuse, appear hairlike, cellular, towering, or in sheets, and be associated with fair weather or precipitation.

Clouds have always been an important icon for me, perhaps because I have spent most of my life living in Oregon.

In my sculptural work, I do not literally render plant, animal, or everyday objects, but specific references can be discovered there: one might look like an ear, another a flower bud, a toy, a bug, or a piece of fruit. Each person might see something completely different in the very same sculpture, just as one might in a cloud. I decided to integrate my visual abstractions with the childhood game where one figures out what shapes they see in the real cumulus clouds.

last two...install tomorrow.

Hah! I just finished packing for my big install tomorrow. Here's the last two clouds:

Sorry for the bad camera photography yet again....I did manage to individually document each piece and will play with those images next week. I'll post photos of the final installation then too. Gotta get one last dose of TBA before I hit the road. See ya!

closer....

I'm down to the two last clouds for the OSU project--splitting my time between this project and the TBA festival with dog runs in between....coming down the homestretch in style. Here's a few more of the completed groups. As with my last posting, I'll remind you that this is not the ultimate configuration--I just laid them out for the photograph.

Two more to paint....installation day is Thursday. I'll check in one last time with the last two. I am really hoping to have time to photograph each piece individually and put a quick video together that runs through the entire batch of 450 in a minute or two. I can do that, right? Right? Stay tuned as our story continues.....