Manifold Bat Collage

My art is a narrative statement on our environmental impact that highlights the juxtaposition of native wild animals surviving in urban areas. I have worked many years as a re-forester and see the devastation that can happen when things go awry with nature. I have seen animals trying to survive in the most unlikely places; birds nesting in high tension towers, salamanders making homes in beer cans, bears, coyote and bobcat roaming in urban yards -- all victims of urban sprawl. After researching the endangered status of each animal, I sketch my thoughts on paper and decide whether I will sculpt or paint my subject. I sculpt with high-fire porcelain or stoneware from blocks of clay, adding and subtracting as I go. I use my hands, slab roller, extruder, carving tools, including wood fragments or shells to create shapes and textures. The permanence of clay allows me to feel that I am immortalizing each animal in three dimensions. I paint what I cannot create in clay. Coming from an illustration background, I use this opportunity to tell a story or set a mood more deeply in my paintings. Showing fight scenes among native and non-native birds, the rush of a pack of wolves running through city streets or a bobcat roaming through an abandoned building -- all have an impact that far outreaches the boundaries of sculpture. To me, these pieces are as fragile as the true animals and remain a record of what we have with us today but may lose tomorrow.