The following is the text I wrote to accompany my original online display of my
sculpture. I've switched the images to those of the paintings that I made as studies for
larger paintings. They ended up being a prelude to my foray into sculpture.
"The idea to do sculpture was a long time in the making. I only took one
sculpture class in college and hated it. We were using plaster of
Paris, doing these hideous busts. Or at least mine was hideous.
One of the reasons for wanting to do sculpture was specifically because
I hadn't really studied it, and had few preconceptions.
On
the way to Sun Valley, Idaho, a few years ago, I noticed in the high desert
that the trees would grow around stream beds, that being the only source
of water. Many of these little copses were crescent shaped, the stream
gently curving, and the trees (always deciduous) seeming to get taller
at the center of the curve. I thought at the time how beautiful this
was, how one could escape from the world and live along the curve of the
stream in a little woods, surrounded by the blankness of the desert.
I guess being away from home made me think of the need for a home.
Maybe it was the tenuous connection of the trees to the land there in the
snow covered desert, particularly stark for someone who lives with Douglas
Firs towering around him.
I did a number of sketches, then paintings, using the crescent motif, none
of which was particularly to my liking. I abandoned the idea, or
so it seemed, until I was again away from home, spending a week in Hawaii.
I think the fact that the volcanoes that form the Hawaiian islands lie
in a string as they do, sparked again the idea of the crescent shaped,
repeating forms. This time mountains taking the place of trees.
|