I want the viewer to have a sense of wonder and awe when looking at my work. We have all at one point or another picked up a stick from the ground—touched the wood, peeled the bark off with our fingernails. My work taps into that same primal desire of touching nature and being close to it. Trees connect us back to nature, back to this Earth. Over many decades I have created a unique technique of working with wood—my primary material. To craft my work, I usually begin with a drawing. I start out each day collecting tree limbs and sticks that have fallen to the ground. I never chop down a living tree or use green wood. Next, I debark the branch and look for shapes found within each piece of wood. I then cut and permanently join these small shapes together. Then, all the open joints get filled with a home made putty and sanded. This process of putty and sanding usually needs to be repeated at least three times. It is a very time consuming process and each sculpture takes me a minimum of a month to build. The sculpture that is being constructed appears like my line drawing but in space. I am interested in having my work appears as if it grew in nature, when in fact each sculpture is usually composed of hundreds of small pieces of wood that are seamlessly jointed together. My work can be called the ultimate recycling: where I take the detritus of nature and give it a new life. My influences are many—from looking at the patterns in nature and plant life on this Earth to researching the heavenly bodies in the images beamed back from the Hubble Telescope—From studying ancient Buddhist mandalas and designs to delving deeper into quantum physics—From researching mysterious manuscripts to studying the patterns inside our brains.

All these influences inspire me daily.