"It's about everything existing in a context."  - Robert Irwin

There are common threads that run through my work. I have always had a love of nature and the outdoors, a strong interest in architecture and design, and a respect for materials and craftsmanship. These things provide a foundation for me but at the very heart of the matter my work is about an innate drive to create and the joy and satisfaction that comes through the process and from the results. In that sense, it's important to me to always be open to the potential for inspiration. I try to be as aware as possible of the world around me and I'm always on the lookout for the stuff that can inform my work because inspiration can come from anywhere; a physical thing, an experience, an observed natural phenomenon, whatever.

This is also the way I tend to go about gathering my materials, casually but mindfully. It's a bit like walking down a beach, picking up certain stones or shells as you go. You don't pick up every one, only the ones you are drawn to and you edit your collection as you walk along. Since I don't always have an idea in mind of what I want to make I rely a bit on the materials I gather to bring some inspiration with them. This can create a challenge, however. How many of us have brought home beautiful and interesting rocks from the beach only to find that they aren't so beautiful or interesting on the kitchen table? They are still the same rocks, it's just that they lack the context that compelled you to pick them up and aren't so appealing when they've been removed from it. Though they may have lost that power they now contain or represent the memory of that experience and that place. So, I try to keep in mind what it was that drew me to it (or it to me) as often times I use that characteristic as a jumping off point and occasionally that becomes the whole basis for the piece. I am always reminding myself that I'm creating a new context, that a new story is being told, informed sometimes by the former context. To that end, it is important to me that each element is thoughtfully selected and carefully manipulated with its identity still intact. I work with light, textures, space, weight, and mass to play up and celebrate the essential qualities of each element in a compostion thereby creating relationships through juxtapostion that help to convey the meaning of the piece. Ultimately and simply, whether for me, the artist, or you, the viewer, it's really about searching and the potential for discovery.

I am someone who never expected to become an artist. I always thought that I would be practicing architecture but for some reason it just didn't fit. As a result I got a late start in this endeavor and have had to learn the ropes myself.  Fortunately art and architecture aren't that far apart and I feel like I exist somewhere in between. I am forever amazed by the capacity each has to move people, the depths that can be mined for inspiration, and the many ways inspiration can be shaped. As a kid, for me it was about having an idea for something; a fort, a go cart, a Kool-aid stand, and then foraging for the materials and making it, as an adult it's essentially the same, but with the richness of life folded in. Sure, the context has changed, but what's better than making something with your own two hands?