Above: A show of Hands (with Roses) 2023, Photo collage on board, 32x40 inches.

Introduction

An experimental approach to art making coupled with an abiding sense of the poetic are the hallmarks of my art. It is an art that has explored this approach and sensibility through a variety of media and artforms over the years: Word works and poetry, artist's books and book works, performance art, drawings, collage, montage, and assemblage. Central to much of this work is the use of found or appropriated material. While the use of found material is widespread today, it doesn't always lead to compelling results. What is often missing is an experimental and poetic use of found material that juxtaposes and transforms it through traditional techniques that produce works that reflect how we make sense or meaning of something. Visual metaphor is also central to this approach. What connects much of this work is thus a conceptual, or better, cognitive approach to art making, where ideas are given immediacy and palpability through sense perception. The meanings that we find in artwork result from an active imagination and an awareness of the palpable ways that we might think, see and feel about things. Poetic ideas in particular can be developed from found things by paying attention to and utilizing their salient or unusual characteristics, in both formal and conceptual terms. In my work, the ideas thus realized are generally of a symbolic and/or metaphorical nature: Poetic ideas expressed in either visual or verbal terms, or both.

Some of the artworks represented on this website are hybrids in the sense that they could be categorized in more than one way; that there is often an overlap between art forms and/or techniques, for instance, a work might be a collage/assemblage (Mantle [after a fashion] 2007), or a text/collage (Scroll of Babel 2014). How a work is categorized seems to depend upon what aspect of the work is emphasized. Any categorization of artwork is somewhat arbitrary, but it is a helpful tool, especially where the artist is exploring new meaning for appropriated material through such overlaps and is largely unconcerned with “stylistic consistency.” Considering the experimental nature of much of my work, it follows that many of the artworks have inspired written commentaries; musings on the processes of their making and offering possible interpretations as to their meaning or significance. Writing for the creative artist is often an essential adjunct to his or her work. Creativity doesn't end with the artwork; writing can be an interrelated or integrative articulation revealing processes of sense perception, imagination, thought and feeling embodied in the art. For a more comprehensive statement about my work access the following link.