I work like a handyman, cobbling together my pieces from objects fabricated, found and imagined. In this body of work, I am exploring how to put mixed-material sculptures together, both literally and figuratively. For years I worked primarily in clay, with just a smattering of other materials, mostly surface treatments. Now I’ve taken on mixed material sculpture full-tilt bogie.

The construction of mixed material artwork is always a series of engineering challenges. I work with clay, resin, wood, metal, found objects, paper, fabric, paint, wax, ink,  glass, and plastic. How to join these materials in ways that make them wok physically and make a coherent statement is a what I love best about making things.

For mixed-material artwork to succeed, the material recombination should feel seamless. The materials should coalesce into a sculpture– a story– that looks like it was born this way, that it couldn’t possibly be anything else. I want you to see and feel the emotional narrative of each sculpture. That, to me is success.

My work is a balancing act. The sculptures both celebrate and struggle with the world around them. There is at once a sense of imbalance and grace to these figures, propelled by my deep-seated belief in the ultimate triumph of us as ridiculous humans.

“Some Assembly Required” is about my fascination with the awkward structure of the human body and the ways in which we balance in life, figuratively and literally. Look at how weird we are, these big, hard heads and outsized torsos balanced on two legs that are asked to do so much each day. We lurch through the world, on two funny little feet. Of course, things go wrong, why wouldn't they?