Please click on the links to jump to the respective works:
1. Cherimoya
2. Goblets
3. Water Trilogy
4. Moon Series
5. Desert Finds
6. Exploring forms and techniques
Exploring Forms and techniques
“Sculptural Sound”, 18” x7” x7”, Maple, walnut and tiger-eye stone. The uplifting hand grasps a walnut cube enclosing a Bluetooth enabled speaker.
This functional sculpture is my first venture into integrating sound into a sculptural form. The hand/arm was initially rough cut using a bandsaw. Progressive refinement of the form involved traditional hand carving with hammer and chisel, fine shaping with a power carver and then final detailing with progressively finer sandpapers. The soft luster is achieved with multiple coats of tung oil followed by Renaissance Wax.
Tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsberg
Desert Finds
“Spectral Fantasy,
Lying in the sand….watching,
Without eyes, waiting”
Cholla skeleton with embedded turned maple eyes colored with aniline dyes and India Ink. Walnut base.
6″ x 4″ x 4″
“The Monsoon Mud Song
Crescendos with nature’s tumult
as life spawns anew”
Cholla with carved maple dragonfly and frog
Moon Series
“Hunter Moon” 
“Harvest Moon” 
“Corvid Moon” 
“Strawberry Moon” 
“Wolf Moon” 
“Egg Moon” 
“Thunder Moon” 
“Hunger Moon”
Each of the “Dark Sky” series sculptures is triggered by the names given to the full moons by the indigenous peoples of North America. From there, personal flights of fantasy has resulted in a yet to be completed series of 12 sculptures. Each piece in the series features the moon, a representation of Virgo, my birth sign, the earth, the sun and a caption that speaks to my night time random thoughts.
Hunter Moon explores the stress we put upon ourselves when we hunt for sleep in increasingly shorter nights. “I, as Virgo mediate the space between melatonin and natural night sky regulation of my circadian rhythms…“
Harvest Moon, is a purely aesthetic piece where I became obsessed with representing the dark sky by the female representation of Virgo. “I as Virgo, cradle the moon as it exerts its influence on the oceans’ currents”
Corvid Moon, inspired by the Pacific North West Indigenous creation beliefs that have Raven bringing the moon, sun and stars to mankind. “I, as Virgo ride the back of Raven in my sleep”
Strawberry Moon, is the given name for the full moon that appears around the time of the summer solstice. “I as Virgo, wakeful at the solstice, relish the bounty of Mother Earth”
Wolf Moon, a friend introduced me to the term for twilight in French “entre le chien et le loup” – between the dog and the wolf. While there are hardly any wolves here in the desert of Southern Arizona, the Coyotes are alive and well. Their calls at night herald an alternate reality right outside my window. “I as Virgo hunger and howl entre le chien et le loup”.
Thunder Moon, was inspired by the lack of the usual monsoon season here in southern Arizona in 2020. In the midst of the pandemic, even mother nature “stayed at home”and meaningful rains never came. “I as Virgo, yearn to dance to the rhythm of your song”
Corn Moon, through multi-generational observation and story telling, indigenous peoples around the world have come to understand and explain the reciprocity to each other and the land that the “three sisters” (Corn, beans and squash) embody. ” I as Virgo wait…, Las tres hermanas juntas, The Earth’s bounty waits”
“Hunger Moon” North Eastern indigenous peoples had several names for the Full moon in Febrary. They all connote the hardships of survival in the cold, snowy season. “I as Virgo… hunger, as winter slowly yields to Spring”
Water Trilogy
My work acknowledges that patterns of human behavior are hard to change. Water use strategies that worked for indigenous peoples hundreds and even thousands of years ago have not scaled well, particularly when we ignore the value of traditional understandings of harmony. Our contemporary myopic focus on extraction, redirection, use and waste denies the science that increasingly identifies our oceans and rivers as having deep and critical affinities to the earth and sky.
The first piece in my Trilogy, “Intelligence”, challenges us to think about past actions in the context of what we know today. Borrowing from Piaget, “Intelligence is not what we know but what we do when we don’t know”, I throw the gauntlet down in the face of decision makers who do not acknowledge the emerging scientific knowledge regarding the life cycle of ground water, and the desert’s ability to regenerate.
The second piece “Consequences”, highlights issues related to environmental resilience. Extraction and use models going back 2000 years have been mutated to the point where we ignore the importance of reverence, thanks and harmony. This myopia has resulted in landscapes that cannot recover in multiple human life cycles. We are creating land-based and ocean-based wastelands on a scale that now affect climate patterns.
The third piece “Faith”, explores the drivers behind our destructive behavior. Our blind faith in an economic construct that continues to reinforce exploitation of natural resources to support “growth”. To paraphrase Kate Rowarth, it’s as if we believe fossil fuel driven GDP is a perpetual motion machine. Science debunked this concept over a century ago, but we as a society seem to have faith that resource extraction is different. It is the holy grail of the economic perpetual motion machine.
Intelligence: Turned, carved Maple with walnut burl base. Embellishment: Aniline dye h:15″, l 13″
Consequences: Turned and carved ambrosia maple . Embellishments: aniline dye, india ink. h:27″, d:22″
Faith: turned and carved maple with sycamore pedestal. Embellishments: Pyrography, india inks and aniline dye. h:22″, l:15″
Goblets
The birth of LOMO2017.com: The path of the Cherimoya
Life on my Own 