I make things with my hands. That is probably the truest thing I know about myself. I process my experience of the world around me by making sculptural objects. My hands have a logic all their own and my work is always very process oriented.
I was raised in the Midwest. I played well with others, but preferred to be left alone. I had things to make. I graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in Anthropology because I was interested in why and how people make things. Why didn’t I go to art school? My parents forbade it and I wanted a college degree, so I adapted. Then I went to culinary school with the secret plot of making art with food. I got the culinary degree, with honors. I did make art with food and for a period of time food was a perfect media for me because it was eaten, there was nothing to leave for the fossil record. I understand why Andy Goldsworthy enjoys making sculptures out of materials like ice.
I learned to weld steel and the physical process of that method of making sculpture was so enjoyable that I forgot about loving evanescence as I embraced the structural permanence of steel. I made steel chairs that attempted to blur the division lines of form and function. I enjoyed the problem of achieving sculptural forms that also functioned well as furniture. The chairs later became abstracted as I worked on some issues pertaining to dysfunctions in how people fail to relate.
