"Soft Brown" Drawing

She asked me, "What's your favorite color." "Black," I said. "No, really," she said, "something that's not black." After some thought I answered, "Gray." I do use color, but in work from the last decade, It's usually the color of the material: Rust, weathered wood, brass, silver, gold.

Most of my steel works are made with salvage steel and wood. Many materials I use exactly as I find them. Fragile surface features of metal—often various shades of rust—are preserved with careful hardware attachment and final assembly. Wood backings—mostly oak—are salvaged from hard-used industrial pallets. The surface of each of these boards is burned with an intense flame. Inner wood retains its strength, but the surface is cracked and fissured.

Whether a material is raw, brightened, polished, burned or any of the other surfaces I use—all colors are inherent in the material. Steel appears in familiar gray, or it can be various hues of rust. It can even show colors natural to the metal when it is subjected to heat and glows red, yellow, or even white. Brass and copper may be bright or darkened with patina. Gilding is the butter yellow of pure gold.

Texture is essential. Unusual uses of industrial tools create a wide range of textures. Some pieces of steel are spattered with melted steel. Others have lines ground into them or deep gouges burned out with an electric-arc-based tool that reaches temperatures of 40,000 degrees, instantly boiling the metal and blasting it away.

Materials you see in my 3D works have had hard lives, but they have endured. Through all their transformations they remain themselves. An array of these works on your wall speaks of the your own authenticity, and of your endurance.

I began in metal years ago as an undergraduate. Then it was small-scale objects of copper, brass, and sliver. Even then I leaned into the raw. My work often mirrored the rough aesthetic of Arte Povera. Through stints in writing, furniture making, photography, I developed my mature style. My work took on nuance and focus. The challenges and satisfactions of my life path underlie my art practice. What I’ve seen and what I’ve done, things I recall with joy, things I try to forget—it’s all here, transformed by my commitment to follow this vision.