Artist's Statement
I explore the forms, textures and deformities of the trees. I separate the trees from the forest, re-present and re-member them. I want to keep the history of the tree present in the work and still reflect the hand and heart of the maker.
I often interpret traditional furniture styles using natural forms. This produces both a caricature and a statement about time, history, impermanence, symmetry, and accident. Though this furniture is strong, its appearance of delicacy and animation is sometimes unsettling. Because the tree is readily recognized within my work, there is an element of dread, that mixture of awe, reverence and terror. Some people like dread, others don't. In recent years, I have developed a series of Memory Chairs which combine found objects into the natural form chair frame. This has allowed me a greater complexity with statements about the interplay of man and nature by using cultural artifacts – tools, fishing tackle, oars – fused with the Trees. I am interested in the soul of objects, that ability of an object to move, to carry, to help create meaning in life. Roland Barthes calls it punctum.