NEW WORK
All work completed between March and December 2020.
Please click on images to enlarge.
All work completed between March and December 2020.
Please click on images to enlarge.
HAIKU GATE
Tall wooden frames support objects and assemblages that move in the wind. The frames themselves are easily rearranged and transported; likewise the dangling elements can be swapped in and out in minutes, so that the piece resembles a portable chalkboard, or a printing press with movable type, than a forever-fixed-in-place sculpture. Some of the kinetic elements also chime, creating a sonic as well as visual experience.
CLick on the image below for audio and video.
BELLS
24"-36" tall. Made from found objects and steel. Click images for video and audio.
CHAPEL
Triangular panels 9 ft on a side are easily attached to create a truncated pyramid, or detached and reconfigured to make other shapes. About 7 feet tall.
DISCOVERY
19 ft tall x 25 ft long, x 6 ft deep, plant material woven and tied.
SKY LINES
.
Pieces shown here range from 24" to 72" high.
Pieces shown here range from 24" to 72" high.
OTHER WORK
The pieces below are between 6 and 9 ft long, and are made from plant matieral, found objects, and steel.
NOTES ON NEW WORK
January 2021
These sculptures were created between March and December 2020, in large part as the manifestation of a stream of consciousness. Aside from the physical tasks involved, the bulk of my effort was directed towards quieting my thinking mind and opening a path for intuitive flow. After the fact, many thoughts, ideas, and feelings about the sculptures came to mind – some are new to me, while others have been lingering and bouncing around in the recesses of my mind for many years. Generally speaking, my intention is that my artwork, rising from the depths of my psyche, connects directly with the deeper parts of your psyche, making words of explanation counterproductive to the intentions of both art and artist. The goal is to spur experience and feeling, not thought.
Having said that, there are situations in which words are wanted, and where they can be an aid to artistic communication, so I am sharing here some words and ideas that came to my mind, before, during, and mostly after the work was done, for anyone who is interested:
GENERAL
Art that is not just in the landscape, but which is an organic part of it.
The unique presence of this art in this place, at this moment, experienced through your senses and integrated with your consciousness, is what it’s about.
HAIKU GATE
This piece began as a scaffold from which to hang kinetic sculptures, using the sky as a background to make it easy to see the sculptures. Gazing at the finished product I was reminded of the Torii gates of Japan, which I was very surprised and pleased to learn are meant to mark passage from the more or less mundane world of everyday life into a sacred space. Sitting as it does in an open plain, Haiku Gate can be a tool to catalyze transitions from small-mind consciousness to big-mind consciousness, regardless of where it stands or which side you are on. The idea is not to turn a profane space into something sacred, or to mark a place that is somehow special, it is to give rise to awareness and appreciation of the sacredness that resides everywhere.
The bells that chime in the wind are repurposed industrial objects – items that did work in manufacturing now have an opportunity to express their sonic/vibrational and aesthetic qualities. “Useless” things revived as objects of power and beauty.
It was important to me that the bells make appealing noises in both light and heavy wind, so each of the Haiku Gate pendula can be very easily moved, rearranged, or removed all together, as heavier wind demands more space between the bells to avoid clattering chaos, and lighter winds want the pieces closer together so that they will touch and ring more frequently.
Unfortunately most Americans have a mistaken idea of what Haiku is. If all you know is what you learned in school, please set that aside for a moment. The following aspects of traditional Haiku are embedded in this installation:
CHAPEL
DISCOVERY
A line drawing in space
Sailing across the desert - a dreamy ship in a dreamy landscape
Humans are crustaceans bound to the sandy bottom of an ocean of air….birds cruise overhead, like fish….a forest of creosote bush sea fans stirs in the current
SKYLINES
Line drawings in space
Glyphs, pictograms, calligraphy – visual language as an expression of the collective unconscious
The beauty of script distinct from meaning, the beauty of script that is connected to meaning
Energetic expressions, suggestions, propositions
Familiar, distinct, unnamable
Having said that, there are situations in which words are wanted, and where they can be an aid to artistic communication, so I am sharing here some words and ideas that came to my mind, before, during, and mostly after the work was done, for anyone who is interested:
GENERAL
Art that is not just in the landscape, but which is an organic part of it.
The unique presence of this art in this place, at this moment, experienced through your senses and integrated with your consciousness, is what it’s about.
HAIKU GATE
This piece began as a scaffold from which to hang kinetic sculptures, using the sky as a background to make it easy to see the sculptures. Gazing at the finished product I was reminded of the Torii gates of Japan, which I was very surprised and pleased to learn are meant to mark passage from the more or less mundane world of everyday life into a sacred space. Sitting as it does in an open plain, Haiku Gate can be a tool to catalyze transitions from small-mind consciousness to big-mind consciousness, regardless of where it stands or which side you are on. The idea is not to turn a profane space into something sacred, or to mark a place that is somehow special, it is to give rise to awareness and appreciation of the sacredness that resides everywhere.
The bells that chime in the wind are repurposed industrial objects – items that did work in manufacturing now have an opportunity to express their sonic/vibrational and aesthetic qualities. “Useless” things revived as objects of power and beauty.
It was important to me that the bells make appealing noises in both light and heavy wind, so each of the Haiku Gate pendula can be very easily moved, rearranged, or removed all together, as heavier wind demands more space between the bells to avoid clattering chaos, and lighter winds want the pieces closer together so that they will touch and ring more frequently.
Unfortunately most Americans have a mistaken idea of what Haiku is. If all you know is what you learned in school, please set that aside for a moment. The following aspects of traditional Haiku are embedded in this installation:
- a very short poem that embodies and expresses the eternal coincidence of the relative (what is present in a particular moment) with the absolute (broader, deeper aspects of existence);
- a combination of physical and sensory elements that suggests something beyond an accumulation of these elements;
- a stable yet flexible framework in which elements can be endlessly inserted and rearranged to create new experiences and meanings;
- everything that is needed, nothing superfluous;
- a connection to nature;
- sound contributes to the overall effect of the piece.
CHAPEL
- A pseudo-shelter, an intimate space in a vast plain
- Walls as windows, window as walls, like the gate that both separates and connects
- Looking through interlocking branches at the sky, like looking through stained glass windows in a church --looking through stained glass windows in a church, like looking at the sky through interlocking branches—a Temple of Nature.
- A triangular structure made of triangles –the mathematical symbol Delta (a triangle) is used to indicate a change or the rate of change. Everything is always changing, it has never paused and never will, but the current, hugely accelerated rate of change on this planet far exceeds anything we humans are equipped to cope with or adapt to – so the triangle, Delta, represents a (the?) fundamental challenge we face today.
- Modularity – this configuration of the triangular panels is just one possibility among an infinite number
DISCOVERY
A line drawing in space
Sailing across the desert - a dreamy ship in a dreamy landscape
Humans are crustaceans bound to the sandy bottom of an ocean of air….birds cruise overhead, like fish….a forest of creosote bush sea fans stirs in the current
SKYLINES
Line drawings in space
Glyphs, pictograms, calligraphy – visual language as an expression of the collective unconscious
The beauty of script distinct from meaning, the beauty of script that is connected to meaning
Energetic expressions, suggestions, propositions
Familiar, distinct, unnamable