BRIEF BIO/HISTORY/CONTACT INFO
The images are numbered in the lower left corners, any desired information may be acquired by referring to them when contacting me.
email: [email protected]
phone: 818.718.7569
Birthed into a ghetto and a family environment of alcoholism…gifted with the ability to render…pencils and paper were my only available media for expression. I drew objects I saw and things I felt … always looking for avenues to portray lives dichotomies, the internal and external obstacles before me. Athletics afforded me college. An internal necessity to search for and express meaning gave me art. My interest in clay and a MA Degree from UCLA in 1969 solidified a direction to pursue the large scale architectural format. This occurred from 1969-71 during my tenure as Director of the Architectural Ceramics Department at “De Porcelyne Fles” in Delft, Netherlands. Our forte there was the design, fabrication, and installation of large ceramic murals for site specific architectural projects worldwide. During this time frame my collaborative work with Leerdam Glass formed the catalyst which seduced me to move from clay to glass as my medium of choice. Once I touched it, it consumed me.
(No other material dealt/deals with light, line, movement, change, intensity…all things visual…as glass did/does, while also paralleling life, having an inner and outer self, an internal and external presence-being.)
In 1971 I returned to the United States, divorced, got custody of my son, a teaching job, a studio space, and a MFA degree in glass from UCLA. I pursued glass from all perspectives; blowing, cutting, polishing, enameling, bending, casting, always looking for new ways to expand my ideas and their scale into the architectural venue. After considerable experimentation and technical exploration I designed and built furnaces which gave me the ability to manipulate (kilnform) 8’x10’ sheets of 1” thick float glass. This technique enabled me to pursue my interest in line…line inspired by the sensual linear quality revealed to me in my drawings of the female nude. I eventually verbalized it as follows:
…” line expresses that movement and rhythm of energy. Through the extension of this line form is created. My primary sculptural concerns are with what I call Linear Form, that is the integration of line with, on and in form, line as form, form as line, and the effect and interaction of line and form on each other”…
This path led me to total abstraction, simply line, form, space, color and light. Work that is beauty, linear, surface embellished, technically perfect, work that denies my past and the overt realities of life’s struggles that surrounded me, but here needing to re-enter that world, bifurcation entered once again. My forms quickly re-addressed life’s questions, visually pursuing answers to …“Why are we here?...Where are we going?…What have we done to get were we are?”… The resultant pieces were of glass, steel and braided cable , some of glass alone and some in the form of glass American flags. These were realized in 1500 Fahrenheit kiln formed, cable wrapped tormented images, echoing the cry of Langston Hughes…”What becomes of a dream deferred”…
This duality continues in my work today and is now more politically relevant than ever.
The images are numbered in the lower left corners, any desired information may be acquired by referring to them when contacting me.
email: [email protected]
phone: 818.718.7569
Birthed into a ghetto and a family environment of alcoholism…gifted with the ability to render…pencils and paper were my only available media for expression. I drew objects I saw and things I felt … always looking for avenues to portray lives dichotomies, the internal and external obstacles before me. Athletics afforded me college. An internal necessity to search for and express meaning gave me art. My interest in clay and a MA Degree from UCLA in 1969 solidified a direction to pursue the large scale architectural format. This occurred from 1969-71 during my tenure as Director of the Architectural Ceramics Department at “De Porcelyne Fles” in Delft, Netherlands. Our forte there was the design, fabrication, and installation of large ceramic murals for site specific architectural projects worldwide. During this time frame my collaborative work with Leerdam Glass formed the catalyst which seduced me to move from clay to glass as my medium of choice. Once I touched it, it consumed me.
(No other material dealt/deals with light, line, movement, change, intensity…all things visual…as glass did/does, while also paralleling life, having an inner and outer self, an internal and external presence-being.)
In 1971 I returned to the United States, divorced, got custody of my son, a teaching job, a studio space, and a MFA degree in glass from UCLA. I pursued glass from all perspectives; blowing, cutting, polishing, enameling, bending, casting, always looking for new ways to expand my ideas and their scale into the architectural venue. After considerable experimentation and technical exploration I designed and built furnaces which gave me the ability to manipulate (kilnform) 8’x10’ sheets of 1” thick float glass. This technique enabled me to pursue my interest in line…line inspired by the sensual linear quality revealed to me in my drawings of the female nude. I eventually verbalized it as follows:
…” line expresses that movement and rhythm of energy. Through the extension of this line form is created. My primary sculptural concerns are with what I call Linear Form, that is the integration of line with, on and in form, line as form, form as line, and the effect and interaction of line and form on each other”…
This path led me to total abstraction, simply line, form, space, color and light. Work that is beauty, linear, surface embellished, technically perfect, work that denies my past and the overt realities of life’s struggles that surrounded me, but here needing to re-enter that world, bifurcation entered once again. My forms quickly re-addressed life’s questions, visually pursuing answers to …“Why are we here?...Where are we going?…What have we done to get were we are?”… The resultant pieces were of glass, steel and braided cable , some of glass alone and some in the form of glass American flags. These were realized in 1500 Fahrenheit kiln formed, cable wrapped tormented images, echoing the cry of Langston Hughes…”What becomes of a dream deferred”…
This duality continues in my work today and is now more politically relevant than ever.