When I was in college, my mentor, Jerome Zimmerman, once said “If anyone asks you how long it took you to make a sculpture, you should say ‘all my life’.” I am paraphrasing from memory, of course. But it rang true then, and even more so now, almost forty years later.
Looking toward my 60th birthday later this year, I have chosen to look back at my life’s work so far. About half the show is sculptures from the decades up to 2010. The rest is newer mixed media works completed since my last solo show at State of the Art Gallery.
It has been an interesting and rewarding journey. I have produced sculptures that are small and intimate as well as some large scale, site-specific, outdoor pieces. Some works took years to complete, while others came together in just a few hours. (The time frame, by the way, did not always correspond to the size!) As I have matured along with the artwork, I have often observed that we artists tend to go back and revisit the same issues and themes repeatedly. Yet each time I find myself looking again at an old theme or material or image, I find the artwork produced has changed because I have changed. So the journey is not one of coming back full circle. It is more of a spiral – when I look back at an old idea, I am seeing it from a new plane.
My artistic passion continues to include a love of combining natural and human made-objects. The work in this exhibit brings together many of the elements I have been exploring over those years: a commitment to re-using found objects; a love of the inherent beauty of the materials; and an exploration of emotional issues dear to my heart. Each work is carefully and lovingly assembled, oiled, polished, and sometimes stitched, to bring them to life.
As I approach 60, I can see that aging brings much that is good, but it also presents challenges, and one of those is that more people in my life are facing illness. I lost my father to lung cancer eight years ago. And recently several friends have faced or are currently facing this disease. To recognize and thank a local agency which is helping many people face the challenges of cancer, I have decided to donate 20% of all sales from my show to The Cancer Resource Center of the Finger Lakes. Please join me in supporting their vital work in our community.