Thoughts from the Artist
Finding Inspiration
People often talk about inspiration, and I’m not sure that's as common as people would like to believe. Inspiration or artistic results come from diligence and work. You have to put in the time thinking and looking.
An idea is always based on some previous thing that you have seen or conceived. And it may be like two or three of those fundamental ideas or facts, but you can't just start with a vacuum and suddenly create something. I think it always is based on some previous concept, knowledge or vision, which just doesn't come to mind.
All of your previous experiences throughout your life contribute to your world view, how you bond to things, and make up whatever people call inspiration.
John Cage famously remarked, work comes from work, and what he meant was artwork comes from the result of hard work, of just showing up at the studio and grinding away at whatever project you have at that particular time.
About Stone as a Medium
I’ve always been interested in stones. I like the look of them. You can really examine them but I’ve come to realize they capture time. When you hold a cobble, it’s easy to forget it was once bedrock. It broke loose, traveled a long way down a riverbed, washed by water until it was worn smooth and ended up in your hand. That object carries a long, long history, and that fascinates me.
Stone is slow to work. My college mentor, Paul Achenbach, insisted I produce something in it, and that was a turning point. It may be slow, but it’s enduring. The age of materials and their outdoor durability matter to me. If you put a lot of effort and time into something, it’s nice if it’s going to last.
Working in stone, something that may last millennia, feels like being in unity with the Egyptians, the Peruvians, the Greeks. I love that. Here in Vermont, stone is plentiful — granite, marble, slate and I can go out and search for it. That appeals to me.
Thoughts on Boulders
The artist Noguchi, who I greatly admire, said something like “any object born into space is sculpture.” I often will just appreciate a stone or boulder for its natural shape, then you add the material it is made of, the color, the texture on the surface, those things appeal to me.
When I use natural boulders, I like to maintain the integrity of the original stone somehow. So that means you don't take away its essence by carving off the general shape of it. I like to retain the natural shape of the boulder in the piece. To me, it's respecting the stone by doing that.
Quarried stone, such as granite, is prevalent where I live. Many gravestones are made from it. Granite has a sort of a “gravestone” tinge about it in my mind, but also you wind up with blocks that you have to totally shape, whereas a natural boulder has its own aesthetic to begin with.
Graceful Metal
Like stone, metal appeals to me because of its longevity. But the process is completely different. Stone is reductive — you remove material to find the form. Metal is additive — you can build outward and expand. It allows larger works to be made. For instance, it’s hard to imagine the Eiffel Tower carved from stone. Metal simply allows for a different kind of ambition. It has totally different properties than stone, and I like them both.
I’m very drawn to the way metal adheres to pleasing curves — what mathematicians call cubic splines. When I started experimenting with CAD, I realized I could combine those curves in very fluid, aesthetic ways.
I use steel occasionally, but outdoors it will rust away. Corten is more durable and less expensive than stainless. Stainless steel has a brightness and strength I love — it feels modern and resilient.
Bronze is another story. It’s far more expensive, but it has warmth and a deep cultural history. It has a wonderful feel in the hand, and welds and casts beautifully. When I work in bronze, the surface feels softer, rounder —it welcomes touch. When I start any kind of project using bronze, I plan very carefully because a mistake will be costly. You want to make sure it works out. Digital modeling is very helpful for that, too.
A Memorable Project
That Place in the Stars, a monumental stainless project, has been my most artistically challenging work to date. It was the largest project I’d ever undertaken not just physically, but in terms of design. Achieving those graceful stainless-steel curves required extensive modeling. I began with paper studies, then moved to 3-D printing, determined that the surface remain smooth and uninterrupted by visible welds.
Because of its scale, I brought in outside fabricators. They were highly skilled industrial craftsmen, though less familiar with fine art, so part of my role was emphasizing that the curves had to be beautiful that respecting the spline was as important as the weld itself.
Once fabricated, the next challenge was assembly. Each arc had to be lifted by crane and positioned precisely, without obvious pick points. I worked out balance on a small model first, then translated that to full scale.
Transporting it required purchasing and modifying a trailer to move the sections 1,500 miles to its final destination in Tulsa, OK where a massive crane set it into place in the client’s garden. The trip enabled a 7-city public art sojourn where “Stars” was on exhibit and enthusiastically welcomed in highly visible outdoor spaces. As a long advocate of public art projects, I found it immensely gratifying. It was a demanding two-year process and easily the most memorable sculpture I’ve created.