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My Rock and My Salvation*
This piece began with the discovery of an unusual rock-like object while I was excavating for a new retaining wall. What was it? Where did it come from?
Rock has long been a metaphor for stability and strength and was frequently used in the Psalms (66 and 144, for example) as a metaphor for the solidity of Yahweh’s faithfulness and promise of salvation. How might I make an evocative pedestal for the rock that captures my own experience with this metaphor and stimulates an engaging visual, emotional and contemplative experience for the viewer.
Is there a fundamental irony embedded in My Rock and My Salvation? This sculpture invites us to contemplate the material, forms and structure of our life journey as well as the symbols and metaphors we choose to help us find our way.
2023 Found Object, Cherry, Maple, Ebony
Encounter*
What we treasure most has roots in an encounter. This encounter may be, for example, with an object, a work of art, a person, a memory deep inside us or, for many, their God. Human relationships are built encounter by encounter into an edifice of memories.
Encounter is an interactive sculpture. It offers an opportunity to explore the many facets of encounter and relationships. It is interactive in the sense that Encounter invites the viewer to touch the stage and the actors (the small pieces of wood surrounding the stage) and insert one or many into the grid of the stage.
Click on the photo for more photos and background information.
2023 Cherry, ebony, holly, maple, red oak, walnut, white oak, 6″ x 32 1/2″ x 26 1/2″
Aspiration in Agony*
The mesquite root from which I created Aspiration in Agony played a significant role in both constraining and inspiring what I could carve. I made the piece with training, guidance and direct assistance from sculptor J Christopher White in a workshop he offered in June 2022. The wood mightily resisted what I wished to make and insisted on a form true to its essence, life history, and intended message.
2022 Mesquite, 8″ x 13″ x 4″
Glory Days*
Glory Days was created in response to the Western Pennsylvania Woodworkers One-Board-Foot Challenge: make a piece with no more than one board foot (1” x 12” x 12”) of wood. I chose my last board foot of spalted maple, purchased over 20 years ago and used for several major pieces. That remaining cutoff reminded me that I too was usually picked last for a middle school baseball team at recess, but one day I was picked second-to-the-last! From that bittersweet memory, it was a short step to Bruce Springsteen’s Glory Days and the vision for my piece as a homage to the glory days of that last cutoff and one of my own.
2022, Spalted Maple, Glass Bowl, Wine Glass
Reverence*
In Reverence, the remains of a single Prunus Serotina have been transformed figuratively into ceremonial robe and posture as a bridge to a garden beyond – to which it beckons the viewer’s close attention. Reverence invites us to reflect on our place and role in the natural world and enhance our capacities for awe at its beauty, respect for its truths, and shame for our failure to live in its harmony.
As the piece was designed to be site-specific, it has been photographed by the artist in place. The conceptual framework for reverence as a virtue follows Paul Woodruff in his Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (2nd edition, 2014).
2020, Cherry and Gabon Ebony
Sacred Geometry 2020*
Christian and Islamic artists aspired to enable the True to shine through the Beautiful. Using the traditional Japanese craft of kumiko, Sacred Geometry 2020 challenges viewers to contemplate the prospects for enlightenment in their own search for beauty and truth.
2020, Basswood, White Oak and foam board. 62“ x 20” x 2”.
Still She Dances*
Transcending extreme hardship with grace can be achieved.
Still She Dances evolved from a tree that once danced in the wind under the spotlights of sun and moon. Now she is as still as a ballerina in closing pose. She has sacrificed greatly, but still dances before you. The slab from which this piece was made was discovered on a discard pallet at a Pennsylvania lumber mill. Although rescued to make a table, she insisted on a higher calling.
2018, Sugar Maple
Narcissus*
In Greek myth, once Narcissus saw his beautiful image in a pond, he could never turn away, and thus he died and narcissism was born.
Narcissus explores what can happen when a shape falls in love with itself. Who can resist the allure of the isosceles trapezoid? Once caught in its seductive self-obsession, how can we break the trance and avoid its self-destructive consequences?
2018, Maple, Walnut and Mirror
Letting Go*
Struggles between holding on and letting go intensify as our lives unfold and call for a compassionate response.
Letting Go depicts the present moment for this piece of walnut as it resists letting go of its former life as a tree. Viewers are invited to explore their own experiences of holding on and letting go by observing clues from the history of the tree, the rug on which it rests, and the compassionate hand of the artist.
2018, Walnut and Wool Rug
Embrace*
An embrace offers a gift of self and hopes for its acceptance.
Embrace reaches out to draw a viewer into its circle. It seeks to delight in the way an object made of wood can warmly embrace and please us. It expects nothing in return except, perhaps, the reverent touch of a finger. The cherry slab was harvested in central Pennsylvania.
2017, Cherry
Mourning Ritual*
Burying loved ones becomes more frequent as we age, and more difficult to bear.
Mourning Ritual engages the viewer in a ritual of mourning for an ash tree taken down by the Emerald Ash Borer. All of the ash in this piece was taken from a single log. A walnut board was conscripted to support the procession of family and friends who contemplate the ritual with empathy.
2017, Ash and Walnut
Truce*
Destructive encounters often ravage their participants and those who stand helpless on the sidelines.
Truce explores the effects of destructive encounters and promises of truce. With roots in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1834), Truce tells its story in ash and cherry. The trees lived in western Pennsylvania.
2016, Ash, Cherry and Copper
Reunion*
Reunion emerged from one five-foot limb salvaged from a walnut tree cut down because it leaned precariously toward a building in Upper St. Clair. The boards, once milled, asked to be reunited and I granted their wish.
2015, Walnut
Sacred Offering*
Sacrifices difficult to justify are often demanded.
Sacred Offering began with a cherry slab for a hall table. The piece slowly evolved into parting with a treasure. The piece asks for empathy and gratitude for those who have done what they had to do, and it cost them dearly.
2014, Cherry
Prodigal Reconciliation*
The drama of the prodigal son and his reunion with his father has not lost its relevance.
Prodigal Reconciliation explores in shape, posture, gesture, surface detail, color, and allusion the challenges that both son and father face in their relationship. The maple and walnut trees from which this piece was made grew in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
2012, Maple, Walnut, and Steel Nails
Quiet Memories*
We value tables on which treasured objects can rest and wait for our attention.
Quiet Memories is designed to elicit feelings of tranquility and contemplation through a harmony of formal elements. It features a cherry slab milled in an unusual way to allow sapwood to surround its heartwood and the knot within. It focusses the eye, heart and spirit on the treasures fully displayed and partially hidden and their meaning to us.
2005, Cherry