Portfolio

Why do I do what I do and have done for 43 years, and look to doing it for 20-30 years more.

When I first began my art career, I was learning how to make a living from the artwork I created. I had no business skills to speak of and learned as I went along. As time went on and I was able to make a living I learned how important the relationships I was forming with the people who purchased and paid for my work were to me and my art career.

[IMAGES of early work to be added]

As an artist I look to my job as being one of exploration. techniques, materials, and processes of creating artwork. I would look at others’ work, admire it and ask myself how I would do it differently. That motivated me to learn how to create work for others in the world and how to create artwork for myself. It helped me understand the world around me and helped me respond to the world. I learned about myself and that artmaking is and could become an all-consuming life process, a joyful, hard, spiritual journey. A very selfish endeavor full of delightful accomplishments and devastating failures. The life lesson for me was you cannot have one without the other and learning to live with this life process and keeping my balance of creating or artmaking became addictive.

[IMAGES of early work to be added]

I create from an explorative point of view that feeds my curiosity and need for learning about how things are made. Using this knowledge I challenge myself to make my work based on what has come before me and how I can create and add to this body of human creativity. I understand that I am only one voice in a chorus of many and very happy to be a part of that group of art contributors.

[IMAGES of later work to be added]

The process I choose to create by is making small models in both jewelry and sculpture. First, I build a roadmap for new designs and ideas so when I get to the material, I have a clear understanding of what I am making and how to accomplish it. These small models help me convey my ideas to patrons, clients and the public. In jewelry, I will start with a line drawing sketch on paper, then a model on matboard getting the size and scale of the piece of work. I then can choose from the elements and principles in art to create the form of the new piece of jewelry. I create my collections of jewelry  using this process, building a look or a style for the jewelry collection. In sculpture I start with a small clay model or wax model of a torso or full figure. For my Figurative Impression work I create within the space that the figure occupies creating the new piece. Selecting the elements and principles of art I choose, they create the new piece.  I do the same with my dancer series using the same figure yet manipulating the model to the pose, gesture or statement I would like. I find for all my work I have become accustomed to this process and never tire of participating in it. This reveals a lot to me about myself, my creative path and the new work about to be born.

[IMAGES of later work to be added]