ARTIST STATEMENT

The desert environment has significantly influenced my work, since moving from a crowded coastal city to the open spaces of the Mojave Desert in 1979. I feel myself trying to peel back time and observe the natural processes at work in the universe much like the Indians must have experienced them and been influenced by them.

At first, I was content with and challenged by producing finished works on paper. Today, I still draw and paint as a preliminary step in producing a large sculpture. My work attempts to ask questions about the balance between advancing technology and the preservation of the natural environment. I find myself caught up in the incredible possibilities of a high tech world, yet recognizing the real possibility of destroying the natural world along the way making the technological advances meaningless and without value.

In my search for the means to visually communicate my feelings, I've combined methods, materials and ideas that express various contrasts and relationships. My goal is to create a delicate balance, between competing influences, that in some way implies the promise of an unstable condition with only the slightest change in the relationships.

My large GeoKinetic sculptures have been referred to as gentle giants. The most often asked question about them is "What makes the arms move?" The giant arms are moved calmly, independently and unpredictably in either direction by the gentlest and highest winds.

EDUCATION

• Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA - Scholarship, Graduated with Distinction, BS. 1974

PUBLIC ART

• "Tortoise and Hare" Marroitt Shadow Ridge Resort, Palm Desert, CA 2001
• "Sky Climbers", 29 Palms Historical Society, 29 Palms, CA 1999
• "Lizards GeoKinetic", City of La Quinta Purchase Award, CA 1999
• "Between the Sun and the Moon" bas relief mural, San Dimas City Hall, CA 1997
• "Living Desert GeoKinetic", The Living Desert, Palm Desert, CA 1996
• "Man and Woman of Steel", Public Sculptures on El Paseo, Palm Desert, CA 1996
• Copper Mountain Campus Xeriscape Garden, Joshua Tree, CA 1996
• "Signatures in Balance", City of Palm Desert, CA, artist in residence, 1995
• "Wilderness Totem", City of La Quinta, CA 1995
• "Joshua Tree National Park GeoKinetic", Park Visitor Center, 29 Palms, CA 1995
• Copper Mountain Campus Monument, Joshua Tree, CA 1995
• "Copper Mountain College Earth Mobile", Joshua Tree, CA 1993
• Pipe's Canyon Conservancy Monument, Pioneertown, CA 1991

PUBLISHED RECOGNITION

• "Desert Light", Ceramics Monthly, June/July/August 1994
• "Nature as a Subject and a Medium", American Artist (Watercolor '93)
• "In Harmony with Nature", Maxine Masterfield; California Design '76