I have worked with wood for most of my adult life. This includes 16 years as a fretted instrument builder, restorer and repairman.  During a subsequent 15-year career as a mental health professional, I maintained a wood working shop and built furniture on the side.  I began  turning wood in 1997, and in the beginning I did the conventional, imitating those around me.  The results were pleasing forms that displayed the most dramatic, natural features of the wood.  With increased technical skill, the forms became more complex (hollow forms, deep hollowed vases), but basically the work was still ‘round and brown.’

About four years into turning, I made a connection between the electric guitar finishes of my instrument building days and my current work.  The American guitar trade in the first half of the twentieth century initiated the look of richly colored surfaces with a highly reflective topcoat.  I have updated and enhanced this treatment for turned vessels.  The hallmark of my approach has become the flamboyant use of color and glass-like finishes. The impact of light on this color saturated, highly reflective surface gives the wood a dramatic depth and luminescence (in French, chatoyance).  The first surface treatments I used included texturing, scorching and copper leafing.  Thin wall piercing and carving predominate my most recent and complex works, and the color palette is now more adventurous.

The wood used is not exotic, but rather local hardwoods, green (unseasoned) or decaying (spalted) as “found” in its natural state. The vast majority of it comes from within a ten-mile radius of my home in eastern Connecticut.  Green wood works easily, and the unpredictable outcomes (both the final form and the interaction of the dyes and grain) are generally pleasant surprises.

I view these works as sculptural pieces, primarily expressed in the vessel form, with the lathe as the originating shaping mechanism.  Although many see my work as unexpected or pushing the limits of the material, wood is a versatile medium, and easily accepts these techniques.  My innovations are not technical, but rather the decision to join the materials with these techniques to elaborate my particular aesthetic vision.  Occasionally, I receive critiques which question loss of the natural  wood tone caused by this treatment.  My assertion is that only the inherent properties of wood that allow this artistic outcome to occur,  however transformed the color palette of the material may from its original state.

The underlying aesthetic focuses on the relationships among form, surface, light and color.   Essentially a container, the vessel form is the perfect vehicle to explore the relationship between exterior form and interior spaces.  The piercing is both a surface graphic and a bridge between the exterior surface and the interior space.  The heavily saturated and highly reflective colored surface energizes the form, by capturing light and intensifying the naturally occurring features of the material.

Finally, there are also some counter-intuitive tactile experiences associated with these pieces. They are thin and made from a low-density material (particularly when contrasted with glass or clay).  As a result, when handled, they feel almost weightless for their size, along with being warm to the touch.

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