| Over twenty years ago, on a flight to New York
from my home in Denver, I looked down on a landscape revealed
after a blizzard across Colorado's eastern plains. The wind
had skimmed the snow from the center of each cultivated field
and piled it against the downwind fences. From above, it appeared
that the earth had swelled and was still straining upwards against
the mesh of fencelines.
This powerful image remained with me, and over time, became
a part of my work. I began to build cause and effect relationships
between my soft clay forms and rigid elements such as wood
and metal. I focused on unifying the two or three materials
used in the construction, striving to make all the parts necessary
to the visual impact of the form. I wanted the pieces to read
as through the finished clay was still soft; swelling in the
bindings of a a rigid secondary material.
Over time, this technique offered many possibilities for
expression. |
