Artist’s Statement

Corten steel is my material of choice. It rusts to a deep dark patina and light creates subtle changes in the soft velvety surface. Stainless steel is more dramatic and I finish the surfaces with signature swirls that reflect light in many directions. Concrete and stone boulders work well to mark the hours in large public sundials.

My public work includes WELLSPRING at the Heller School at Brandeis University near Boston, MA; NAIAD II at the Crossing in San Bruno, CA; Tree of Remembrance at the Respite House in Williston, VT; HIMEGURI at the Mitsubishi Sports Garden in Sendai, Japan and SOLEKKO at the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology in Oslo, Norway.

Most private commissions are in Vermont, some for an urban residence, and others, in the hills and fields of the countryside.

Frank Phillips,design engineer and fabricator, works with me to create the larger steel works. He manages fabrication from his shop in Colorado and uses the steel workshops of Denver to do the difficult rolling and welding of the heavy steel. We complete sculpture on time and within the budget agreed upon.

My sculpture invites participation: with people, and with the sun, shadows and alignments at different seasons of the year. The position of the sun, moon and stars creates a structure for me, like a painter might use a rectangle as a frame of reference.

Inspiration can also come from curves I see in nature: fiddlehead ferns and tendrils of vines or grasses moving in the wind.

I transfer these ideas into calligraphic strokes, first with ink and a brush. Later I cut the “strokes” out of steel, bending them into shape with the heat of an oxy-acetylene torch. These small works are maquettes that can be made into full-scale large steel sculptures.