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This is for the sculpture. It doesn't really apply to the jewelry, so much.
Life and death. Darkness and light. Love and hate. Beauty and ugliness. Old and new. Natural and artificial. Good and bad. Static and dynamic. Simple and complicated.
I don’t see these things as opposites. They are, in their literal definitions, but in the reality that we coexist within, they are integral to one another. They are part of a continuum that has no beginning or ending and are only understandable from within the context of our own perceptions. Who can say when night ends and the day begins? The pieces that I create are coming from this weird twilight region of my brain that refuses to accept straight line dichotomies of concepts.
I think that I’m drawn to writhing forms such as tentacles and vines because of the visceral reactions I have to them. There is a darkness and fearsomeness in bare writhing tentacles that can transform into something light and wholesome. The difference between a scary tentacle reaching for your soul and a light trembling sapling vine reaching for the sun is context. Oftentimes, I’m blurring the line between those two disparate sentiments in order to convey an overarching meaning.
I don’t start a piece with any particular theme or message in mind. In fact, I don’t even sketch out any drafts, plans, or diagrams. When I begin, I start with the raw materials of steel, stone, anvil, fire and a vague notion of shape or composition. As I progress, the work seems to come out as it sees fit, seemingly on its own volition. It isn’t until I’ve finished and stand back to look at what I have created does it make any sense. I don’t understand how that happens, it just does. Inevitably, there is always a blending of a dualistic theme. An attempt to express, in physical form, age old ideas that “without one there cannot be the other” or “they are one and the same.”
And it has to look cool, too. Always.
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