My sculpture is not obviously representational, and so in some ways resembles the nonobjective art of the last century. The intention of many artists of that era was to pare art down to its basic constituents, that is, to empty out all meaning and content. I share with them a quest for simplicity, but I believe that, like it or not, meaning, content, symbolism, are inherently present in art objects, or rather, inherently present in the artistic experience. We cannot help but associate even very simple objects with experiences, thoughts, emotions, ideas, symbols. A painting is not just a painted surface on a flat canvas. A sculpture is not merely an arrangement of metal, wood, or stone. Like language, it points to something else.

Unlike language, the meaning or content of an art object is less exact.  An essay, for example, denotes ideas and arguments using a vocabulary of words in exact ways, and those ideas are subject to logical refutation and rebuttal. But visual art, like poetry, connotes: the meaning arising from an art object is thus fluid, subjective, and emotional, but it does convey ideas that are just as real as those expressed in written or spoken language.

Just as in an essay, a simple set of words—a vocabulary—is combined in a certain order using a multiplicity of rules to express complex concepts, so I use a simple set of objects, combining and juxtaposing them in unexpected or paradoxical ways to convey a similar complexity. The rules that govern these combinations are subtle, but present. My esthetic vocabulary in the last seven years has consisted of common, easily-found objects: lumber, sticks, branches, hollowed-out logs and stumps, stones, copper pipe, glass that’s been cut, fused, and polished.

I don’t strive consciously for either abstraction or representation in my work, but certain abstract shapes I use resemble functional objects, and so acquire a representational character. For example, the curve of a tree trunk might suggest the keel of a ship, an undulating form might bring to mind a snake or worm, a smooth rock might evoke an egg, a concave curve—a nest.  I play with these representational suggestions, using placements that often contradict the functions we expect of those objects. And maybe new meanings arise.

If I had to identify a single thread that runs through my work it is the underlying unity of the natural and the artificial. This has been a long-standing theme in my career, since much of my earlier work—primarily mixed-media paintings shown in the Houston area during the 70s and 80s—touched upon the same topic. Since we evolved from nature, the artificial is an evolutionary progression from the natural world, i.e., artifice arises from nature: really anything we do can be viewed as a natural process, as natural as the wind or the rain. When we think of things in terms of the traditional opposition between natural and artificial, it’s a convenient way to categorize the world, but it can also be misleading. There are real differences, but it’s not a matter of a simple demarcation line separating two opposing realms. Rather, many aspects of these opposites relate to each other in complex ways that weave back and forth. They relate to each other as the intricate yet disparate strands of a braid. They are separate but interlocking.

That being said, I discover and/or identify thematic or symbolic content after the fact, and that interpretation is subject to dispute. I don’t think an artist’s interpretation of his or her own work is authoritative, or even necessarily helpful. I never start a piece thinking about what I want it to mean, and I seldom begin a work with the finished state in mind. I might have an idea of the final outcome beforehand, but that idea is less like a blueprint and more like a sign beside a path in the woods.  The writer John Fowles described the process of writing as a “walk in the woods”: the destination is unclear and the path is winding and often tangled, the walk being itself an act of discovery. The act of making is how I discover what I want to convey, what I want to see in the end.