Wandering, the deliberate moving off a set course, is about non-conforming setting up the possibility of staying open to a new way of experiencing and/or resolving everyday challenges. From my earliest memories the physical act of walking and wandering has been intertwined into my daily experience and has provided a respite from the chaos and demands of living in our fast paced culture. To help facilitate the full immersion into the solitude of the natural world I have tried to eliminate as many technological forms of communication as possible: forgoing television, newspapers and a regimented use of the computer are a part of my daily studio and life practice. This self imposed practice of limiting the vast amount of communication competing for our energy and time fosters a counter culture approach to making. It is in the getting lost and at some point finding my way back that new possibilities occur and the transformation of ideas emerge.
A “good” wander is when I find myself hiking though a forested natural habitat far away from the beeps, clicks, horns, sirens, ring tones and other minutia of daily life. Here I am able to immerse myself into the natural world and mentally record the sights and sounds along my trek. Over the past few years the tree and all of its’ by- products has made its way into my urban studio practice and presented itself as a metaphor for the human experience: wood, branches, paper, cardboard and glue are married to Styrofoam, paint, fabric, resin and plaster in the assemblage of nest-like works as seen in the sculpture “New Construction Tree VI”
The process of incorporating materials at differing physical states in the act of crafting something new mimics for me the human experience of merging memory with the present. The painting “Winter I” speaks to the interweaving of elements of the natural world with the man-made is an attempt to find a balance between strength and fragility while keeping open the possibility for change and transformation. It is my hope that together the abstract and referential will invoke the quirky mania of modern society balanced by the solitude of the natural world in which the viewer may wander into for avisit.
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