ARTIST STATEMENT: Growing up, I was surrounded by art.  My father was a chainsaw woodcarver, and as soon as I could, I took it up as well.  Chainsaw carving at age 13 was a great way to make money, and not much thought was given to artistic expression.  I continued to carve until college, when the need for some fast cash arose.  Once in college, I took a sculpture class and that small seed planted with a chainsaw finally sprouted and grew.  Within a couple of years, I was teaching the very same class I once took.  To increase my knowledge and understanding of fine art, and to pay the bills, I began working at bronze casting foundries.  

The problem after a time began to be that I truly needed to pursue an education in art at a university with quality instruction.  The area of sculpture most alluring to me was that of representational work focusing mainly on the human form.  I recently graduated from the Lyme Academy in Old Lyme, Conneticut, and I am currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Fine Art in Philadelphia   

I am beginning to grasp what art is truly capable of and my love and study of the human figure will remain as long as there is breath in me.  The ability to capture the physical and spiritual part of man is to me the essence of art and sculpture, without these two elements securely affixed in my sculpture it is a dead and pointless exercise.  As I have studied the human form, the one constant for me and the most amazing are its undulating rhythms.  Here the Creator’s harmonizing hand is most apparent, and the body communicates in a truly beautiful curve and counter curve language. I will continue to study the figure and represent the emotions and trials of our existence in my work.  All conceptual ideas can be handled within the confines of the figure, and that suits me.  

Though the smell of wet earthy clay has replaced the aromatic cedar of my youth, and I have traded the chainsaw for small wooden tools, I am content.  The journey I started unwittingly in my youth now has direction and purpose.