My world is made up of textures and layers. As a child living in the country, I spent hours looking for and picking up rusty nails on our sandy, hilly driveway after a rainstorm. My dad would pay me a penny a nail. Two cents if they were larger nail or a piece of wire. I can still see the rusty textured layers; the burnt orange, sienna, and sometimes a hint of blue-green patina. This corroded metal intrigued me and still does.

I am energized by the reaction and the texture that is created on metal when I distort it with heat, pounding, or paint. Metal doesn’t move easily and I love the coaxing of it to give it a tactile life. I become impelled to produce structure and density where there once was smoothness. Of all my tools, my favorites are an old railroad rail and a chewed up copper mallet. When I use these tools they create my personal marks and textures that are individual only to my work.

I consider myself a contemporary constructivist. My thinking is based on metals and their layers. The colors that can be built up and scratched or sanded away to reveal another texture. Softened like a lingering abstract memory. I fabricate my enthusiasm for natural vistas with my sculptural paintings and jewelry. I can’t say I always know ahead of time what my artwork will reveal, but I know I have no choice but to look beyond the surface.