I am interested in the primal relationships of fire-molten glass, metal, sand-earth, wood; constructing a parallel between process and the material object. Each piece takes on its own qualities of light, texture and form-defining space and a sense of age and time. Contrasting blown and cast glass forms with steel, paint, resin and found objects broadens the vocabulary. The use of glass in my work goes beyond the beauty of the material, to emphasize the rawness of it in its most basic states: hot, cool and cold. This elemental quality is inherent to the material and fundamental to how I use it.
Cast resin, found object, steel, wood. 34" tall and 20" tall
Hand Tools and Arms deals with the fine line between construction and destruction. The human power that assembles and wields these tools/weapons is an integral part of this work; which questions the ambiguous relationship between building and destroying, reconstruction and war.
Found objects, sculpted and blown glass, wood, steel, rubber
Blown and mirrored glass, found objects, wood.
Conference is a response to the anger I felt when the US bombed Iraq. A war sold to us using fear tactics, neatly packaged for our consumption with phrases like “Shock and Awe” and “Operation Iraqi Freedom”— sexy and shiny and so far removed from reality.
Houses: Skeleton, Heart & Lungs, Bones
wood, pigment, flame worked inclusions in cast glass
Built on Their Bones recalls those who have gone before us—individuals and entire civilizations that have been forgotten as we build our lives upon their remains.
Thorn, Seed, Moon
blown glass, steel, cast bronze, electro-formed copper
The powerful traditions that integrate myth and magic were sources of inspiration for earlier work, vessel forms that refer to family, place, health, growth, memory and rites of passage. In the Ritual Vessels Series, glass organs representing the pulse and breath of life are completed with cast bronze lids, which are symbolic of their ritual purpose. The components of each vessel have levels of significance that when assembled tell specific stories of life experience.