January 4, 2007. the Show at La Familia Gallery

My first show in 13 years... it was a blast! Had a great turnout and even sold a few pieces... which is always nice!

the Show, January 4, 2007

Yours truly converses with international photographer Heather Fassio and master metal artist Mike Danielson.

the Show, January 4, 2007

It moves me to tears to see my art spark romance between two young art enthusiasts.

The Show, January 4, 2007

Gallery owner Lanae Rivers-Woods and local legendary artist Roger Waterhouse have a discussion about art.

"The Waiter" Series

1999 - Present. Panoramic Photo series.
This project has been in the works for many years. The Waiter series is about Love and Hate, Good and Bad, Yin and Yang etc. Waiting is a job that is never ending. Customers come and go but the Waiter is continuous. So the Waiter diligently searches for his/her out. i hate waiting tables, but i love to travel... and the one allowed for the other to happen. The photos here do not really do The Waiter justice, because each complete Waiter photo is a panoramic consisting of any where from 4 to 10 different shots that are attached together to create one big photo... sometimes with multiple images of the Waiter and sometimes just one. This series is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

"Hare"

2006. 10" x 16 1/2" x 7". Wire on wood.
This is the first in a series titled "Trophies". Obviously inspired by wild game head trophies, only a little more eloquent and comical. i envision a total of 20 or 30 Trophies on opposite walls of a long, narrow white room and the viewer walks down the center.

"Cicada"

2005. 7" x 14 1/2" x 3". Wire.
The first of the Insect Collection. i have always been interested in entomology and i love the visual of how insects are displayed in collections... so i decided to create my own collection of insects.

"Luna Moth"

2005. 11" x 10" x 2 1/2". Wire.
This is the second addition to the Insect Collection. i see myself adding new insects to the collection for the rest of my Life.

"Spider"

1996 - 2003. 80" x 96" x 24". Wire and cotton wood.
i like spiders. It took me awhile to finish this piece. i was traveling a lot and the piece would get crushed and i would have to re-shape it. Finally i finished the spider then i had to figure out how to display it. i tried to get it to look as if the spider in creating its web also created the wooden frame.

"Untitled"

2003. 18" x 24". Acrylic paint and sand on board.
This one was for my mom.

"Self Portrait at Time of Conception"

2002. 18" x 24" x 3". Wire on board.
This piece was selected for The Biennial Alaska Juried Craft Exhibition titled "Earth, Fire and Fibre XXIV". i was a little surprised that it was selected because it's not really a "craft" piece and it definately wasn't like any other piece in the show. Still, i was happy to have it shown.

"Anatomy of a Hand"

2002 - 1996. 24" x 18" x 3". Wire on board.
This is the first wire piece that i ever started... there were a few that i finished before this piece, but this is the one that gave birth to all the others. It is a 3 dimensional line drawing of every bone in the hand and wrist and start of the forearm.

"Spirit Mask I"

2002 -. 18 1/2 " x 5" x 4 1/2 ". Plaster, acrylic paint, and feather.
This is the first of a series. The series mocks what traditional spirit masks have become... another means to make a buck$. Each mask has a punctuation mark and the facial expression on the mask corresponds with that punctuation mark.

"Conspiracy"

2002. 2' x 6' . Acrylic paint on hard board.
Paint was rapidly applied to board to give the image a feeling of high energy and a sense that what you are seeing is a snapshot of many bodies moving in all directions.

"An American Beauty"

2001. 5 1/2" x 5 1/2". Acrylic paint on hard board.
Silhouette of an angered American whose race and gender are both uncertain and unimportant to the piece... only the eyes and nose are detailed.

"Beaver"

2001. 4' x 4'. Plywood, acrylic paint, eye bolts, and a birch wood stick.
i found this stick while fishing in Alaska. i thought it was beautiful. i loved the fact that the stick had been robbed of all its bark and cut at both ends by a beaver... it inspired the art piece. The plywood and paint are more of a sexual backdrop to the art work that the beaver did on the stick.

"AXE"

2001. 13" x 29". Charcoal and oil sticks on paper.
During an art session with a friend, i knocked this piece out in about 2 minutes. i love it. It is a reminder of the intensity of our artistic frenzy that night.

"Self Portrait III"

2001. 32" x 26". Oil paint on hard board.
This is a symbolic self portrait. The miter represents my Catholic up bringing. The black militaristic bill on the miter is for the military influence from my father while growing up. The ravens flying out of the miter represents thoughts that would be considered "taboo" by the two institutions that influenced my early thinking.

"Self Portrait II"

2000. 4" x 3". Linoleum cut.
This piece was originally thought of in 1994 and i did some priliminary drawings and a rough painting... then the idea sat for many years. i did this lino cut while i was working on the final oil painting. i will probably recreate this piece again in the future.

"Dragonfly"

2000. 30" x 24" x 4". Wire.
This piece was a wedding present for some friends of mine. Though not the first wire piece that i started it is the first one that i completed.

"Untitled"

1995 -1998. 18" x 18 1/2". Oil pastels on paper.
This piece was inspired by my own bad teeth... granted they are not this bad, but i have always had problems with them no matter how much i brush or floss... it is just the "hand " i was dealt. So i exaggerated the situation considerably and worked on the piece for almost 3 years. i love the contrast between the horrific image and the rich colors.

"CHAD"

1995. 10" x 10"? Wood, screws, henges, and oil paint.
Chad is one of my closest friends... you can always count on him for a goofy look. i created this sort of shrine-like box which houses a painting of one of his classic looks.

"Like Flies on a Windowsill (Fear of Insignificance)"

1994. 4' x 8 1/2'. Mixed media.
i had read an article about John and Jane Does in New York City and the process that happens before disposing of the body and i became fascinated by the idea of dying unnoticed. So i made some phone calls to the Washington State Patrol, Missing/Unidentified Persons Unit and i talked to an officer there and told him i was working on a project for school... he answered some questions and sent me a copy of the packet that they have to fill out every time they come across an unidentified person. i thought about what it must be like to die and to have no one notice that you are gone... it must be much like the flies in the corners of my windowsill (which says a lot about how often i clean my windowsill) only i did notice them but i didn't care. The similarity here is that they both have a feeling of insignificance to them. Hence the title and the piece.

"Like Flies on a Windowsill (Fear of Insignificance)"

Here you see the three individual windows. Each painted a different color to represent different "homes" or separate "lives"... but they all share the same windowsill which bonds the three separate windows. Each window frames a different sheet from the Unidentified Persons Packet. One is the cover sheet which gives you the date, name of the Coroner, investigating Law Enforcement Agency and the case # for both, a check list, etc. In the second window is the Physical Discriptors sheet which asks for different descriptions of the body... blood type, tattoos, identifiable scars, hair color, etc. The third window holds the Body Condition and Status of Parts sheet which asks if the recovered remains are Well Preserved, Decomposed/Burned, or Skeletal. Then it asks what parts of the body were or were not recovered. And in the corners of all three windows are little piles of dead flies, but upon closer investigation you find that the flies are actually little wire people... representative of unclaimed bodies.

"Like Flies on a Windowsill (Fear of Insignificance)"

Here is a close up of the wire "fly" people.
i, with the help of my friend Tiffany Tessada, created over 300 of these wire figures.
i found it interesting that people were stealing these "flies"... people would actually come to me and tell me that the took some. Somehow that was flattering to me.

"Betrayal"

1993. 11' x 1 1/2'.

Wood, glass, and bird seed.
People weren't sure if this was an art piece or a science experiment.The idea here was that its cruel to do this to animals, but people betray each other often and rarely think twice about it... is that okay? i'm not certain if this was a successful piece, but i do enjoy the image.

"Severed Head on a Pike"

1993. 11 1/2' tall. 140 pounds. Welded metal, steel pipes, and a steel rod.
It took many attempts to finish this piece... i came across many problems in creating the Head.
i finally decided to treat the metal almost as if it were clay... i first "drew" some features with forged and welded metal strips. Then i filled in the gaps with pieces of metal that i heated up and welded on... layer upon layer until i got the look that i wanted. i wanted the Head to look as though it were roughed-up before being severed, so i gave it a broken nose and a fat lip and i cut off one of the ears, then i used welding rods to sew the eyes and mouth shut. Before closing up the Head entirely, i used a cutting torch and cut away some of the underlying layers to reduce the weight. For the top of the pike i used a solid steel rod and came at it with a cutting torch... which both tappered it and created a look of having chunks of brain on the pike. After creating the piece, i then installed it at the main entrance to the Art Dept. the night before prospective art professors were coming to give slide presentations of their work and interviews for various teaching positions. The severed head stood standing for the entire week of interviews. Later i sold it to the owners of the UP & UP bar in downtown Bellingham, WA... and to my knowledge it is still there.

"Critiquing Pricks"

1993. Chicken wire, paper-mache', plaster, paint, painting easel, and mirror.
i do not remember the dimensions of this piece, but the pricks stood about 4 feet high. This was an installation piece at the no longer existing The Fresh & Snappy Gallery, the pricks are looking at a mirror on an easel. The mirror represents a piece of art and as the viewer stands behind either of the two side pricks and looks into the mirror he/she will see a reflection of the other prick. If the viewer stands behind the center prick and looks into the mirror he/she will see a reflection of him/herself and the center prick. Basically, the viewer is the critiquing prick. This piece received very mixed reviews... i loved it.

"Bike Ride"

1993. 4' x 6 1/2'. 1 Raleigh bicycle for boys and 1 Schwinn bicycle for girls.
This was a fun piece. The bikes were dismantled then put back together to represent their appropriate genders. This piece is made completely from the parts of these two bikes, with the exception of some additional welding. If you can't figure it out... it's two people screwin'.

"Raven"

1993. 2' x 3 1/2'. Chicken wire, wood, plaster, paper-mache', and paint.
The piece is created proportionately correct except that it is more than twice the size of an actual raven, but when placed at a distance from the viewer the eye is fooled and the viewer sees a very large bird.

"Raven"

1993. Detail.
Up close it is a crude looking piece, but very effective. Again, this was another piece that was not meant to be viewed in a gallery (in fact, would not work in a gallery setting). People are expecting to see art when they go into a gallery... the mind is prepared for it, but when they are just going about their daily routines... they are much more vulnerable.

"Father & Son"

1993. 7" x 7 1/2". Bronze.
There were quite a few bronze pieces that i made during my years at WWU... this one was always my favorite.

Gorilla Series

1992. 13" x 10". Lithography prints.
i have always been intrigued by gorillas.