Sculpture, 2022-2023

“Archer”
Fired clay
Approximately 24” x 12” x 12”
2023

This piece was inspired by drawings I did ten years or so ago with a model named Sophie and a drawing by Michelangelo called “Archers Shooting at a Herm.” My drawings of Sophie were done from life and inspired by the power of her tumescent forms and vibrant line both of which expressed her vitality and fullness of being.

The figures in the Michelangelo drawing have the same vitality as well as an intellectual component. These androgynous figures that seem mostly female are taking aim at a Herm standing erect and rigid in opposition to their energized movement. The arrows have all missed their mark or are blocked by a shield. Moreover, many of the archers do not even hold bows. It is as though they themselves are the bow and the arrow nearly flying towards their target. This piece also seems to allude to the intertwining of lust and love.

Well, that’s a lot to heap on a little piece of fired clay. But those are the concerns I had in mind when creating this piece. My piece not only doesn’t have a bow, but she doesn’t even have arms or a head. Somehow these reductions were meant to emphasize the power in the torso and basic primal thrust coming from her core.

Like many of my pieces done at this time in the limited confines of my Covid era studio, this was intended as a study for a much larger piece. Perhaps now, I can make this bigger and with even more power. I want the lower leg to have a powerful foot that is grabbing the stone so tight that all the muscles of her leg and hip are flexed to the maximum. And I want the left arm fully developed with a clenched hand over an invisible bow. I also want to twist the torso a bit as though the right arm is pulling the string back. I don’t think it will have a head.

However, I will also build a plinth underneath the block that is part of the piece. The plinth will be an allusion to her target, the Herm in the Michelangelo piece will already be beneath her, partially hidden in a box below her very feet. I’m not sure why this feels right. But I’ll trust my intuition and perhaps someone will have some terrific insight about how that is a contemporary mythic truth.

I’ll do the piece first….and figure it out later. Not a great way to build a house, but a great way to make a sculpture.

“Seated Woman”
Ceramic 
12” x 9” x 9”.  Approximately. 
2023
 
This piece was carved rather than modeled. The block of clay had dried out and was leather hard. I used a wire and other tools to remove clay. The only thing added is the little ball at the top of the sculpture; the head. 
 
This piece is about how light falling on texture creates form and energy. Part of the energy comes from your own oscillating perception of the piece as a figure on the one hand and a chunk of dirt on the other.     
 
The little ball on top creates an oscillation of scale and ideally has the same energizing affect.  
 
Ok….that’s all well and good. But there is something else about this piece that just “works” for me and I’m not sure any of the preceding paragraphs explain all of it. Somehow it just came together….and quickly as well. I don’t think this piece took more than 30 minutes.   

Ceramic 

“Kneeling Study”
Unfired clay
12” x 6” x 6”
2022
 
This small study was done from life with my model, Crystal.   Crystal has been modeling for me every Thursday evening for almost 2 years.  However, recently due to various other commitments we have not been able to meet for almost 2 months.  Fortunately, we fell right back into our dance of artist and model.   
 
I set the stage, prepared clay, positioned the Dias and set the lighting.  The general idea was to just pick up where we left off with a small study.  She in turn responded by moving slowly on the Dias until she found a pose she thought might appeal.   Yes, it did….but….it gave me an idea for something a little different.   Could you move your arm here, tuck your foot here….etc.   well…not quite….not sustainable.   Ok.   Let the pose settle to were it’s sustainable and I’ll see if I still like it.   Yes…oh…that great.   Ok.  Here we go.  
 
And so it went, off and on for about an hour and a half.    At one point I added a complete left arm with hand and a suggestion of a head.   But later I ripped the arm off and most of the head.   Then later still I removed even more of the head.   The missing limbs seem especially important at this scale.  But these amputations are not as easy as they might appear.  The energy of the removal has to convey the sweep of the piece.   It is like a final stroke in a piece of calligraphy.  It has the potential to ruin a whole piece.   Sometimes I am unsatisfied with the removal and so reattach a limb and completely rework it just so I can rip it off hopefully to greater affect the second time.  
 
This piece has a particularly harsh working of the back and conversely, an unusually accurate and sumptuous fleshy roundness on the front.  It’s really satisfying to move around the piece.  And the amputated arms give enough guidance to the eye to keep moving without adding their own story.   

The 3 Morai 
Unfired clay and paint
14” x 6” x 14”
1990 and 2022
 
This piece was started in 1990 and then sat around my studio until recently.  And now, in 2022, more than 30 years later, I finally finished it.  In between time it has an interesting history.   In the 1990’s I had a studio with outside storage.  Along with many other sculptures I did the previous few years at another location this piece was stored on some very makeshift shelves I erected along the outside of the building.   They were sheltered from rain but not from vandals and thieves.   One night I heard something outside my studio and when I went out I discovered some people helping themselves to my sculptures.   Of course they ran when I came out.  And who knows what they made off with.  It was too dark to really see which is partially what made the whole thing so weird.  How did they even know they were there.   And what did they want with a bunch of dusty broken piece of sculpture that had no value whatsoever and in most cases were really heavy.  
 
The next day, when there was plenty of daylight, I went out to take stock of what was taken.  Several pieces were gone and many were knocked over and broken.  But I had no inventory so I don’t know what was taken and what wasn’t.  The only piece I was certain was stolen was a bust of Martin Luther King Jr.   
 
Years went by and eventually I decided I wanted to make some large sculptures and one piece I had been carrying in my mind was an enlarged version of this piece.   So I started looking around for it.  But it was no where to be found.  Then I remembered that I had put it on the shelves outside.  Well, after the theft that night years previously, I built shelves inside and moved everything inside.  And sure enough, on those shelves was one of the 3 pieces of this stature.   But the other two were nowhere to be found.  I assumed they were stolen.   
 
Then, in 2012, after 20 years in that studio, I had to move.  In the process of moving I needed to clean up the yard outside the studio.   The yard was a dirt lot under a major highway that cuts through Seattle so is mostly loose dirt and gravel.   Well, in that loose dirt I found the remaining two pieces of this sculpture.   However, it was no longer in tact.   Each of the figures that you see here were broken into several pieces and some of the pieces were missing.  I packed everything in a box and moved.  
 
Ten years later I was finally organized enough to unpack that box and recreate this piece.  And now, my hope is to at last make a larger version of it.  The vision is to carve it from large logs and then blacken the wood with fire.  
 
The 3 Morai are legendary figures that the Ancient Greeks believed shaped each souls destiny at the time of birth.  One of them wove the fabric of your soul. Another measured it and the 3rd cut it.  These spirits were the most feared by the Greeks.   Interestingly they show up in Northern Europe as 3 witches toiling over a cauldron cooking up potions and casting spells like the famous scene in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. 
This idea of 3 aspects of making, measuring and cutting has always fascinated me so I decided to make a sculpture in honor of these actions. 

“Couple”
Unfired clay, wood, wheels
8’ x 3’ x 3’
2022

Initially I did these pieces separately.   And as of this writing in July of 2022 they are the biggest clay sculptures I have completed to date.  It is my intention to use them as models for the creation of life size pieces in concrete.  
 
Concrete is very messy and toxic and to work at the scale I intend, there will be the need for several people working together and large machinery. In short, this is not a good environment for a nude model to be sitting around.  
 
These pieces will serve as a substitute for a live model and have also given me an opportunity to work out the pose and affects that I want.   

“Female Torso”
Unfired clay
40” x20” x20”
2022
 
A tension exists between the disciplined and intentional forms of the figures worked on with skill and feeling by the artist against the “accidental” raw and natural affects of breakage and entropy enacted by the forces of nature upon the stone.    That tension is the most compelling part of these ancient sculptures and what has shaped my own approach.

The way the limbs end is as important if not more so than the how they are positioned or what they are doing.  And I did not include a head because I could not see what it would be doing, expressing or look like.  I could not see how it would advance the piece and quite frankly I just didn’t see it.  Instead, I did my best to terminate the limbs and neck with as much natural flow as I could.  This quality is something I leaned a lot about in my studies of Chinese and Japanese brush painting.  So it’s a little funny that I am applying it here in large Western inspired statuary. When I got this piece to the state it is in now, I decided it needed a female figure directly behind it.   Since he is essentially in a curved up position, I saw her in a curved down position.  I created her separately and then lifted her into position.  It didn’t work.  
 
Fortunately the two pieces worked well individually by themselves.   And so they sat that way in my studio for awhile.   But one day I realized that what they needed was more space.  And so I ginned up this set of boxes to display them in this way.  
 
The space between them is now poignant.   And their arrangement draws you around the piece.   They are still too small and too low to the ground.   But the piece is starting to work the way I intuit it must.
 

“2nd Portrait of Crystal”
Unfired clay, wood
18” x 12” x 12”
2022

Why a second portrait of the same individual?    Well, “ why not” would be a perfectly good answer.   But there is more to the story.   Crystal is a woman who has been coming to my study every Thursday nearly without fail for almost 2 years now.   She poses nude while I sculpt.  The sessions are informal.   I almost never know what I will work on until she gets there and until recently I have always used our time together as “practice” rather than working on something particular.  
 
“Practice” seems too vague.   In fact, our sessions are more like preparations.   I am preparing my skill at both finding the pose that my intuition seeks as well as being able to render it in clay with freshness even at the expense of realistic finish.  These studies can be seen here on this website and are known in Italian with a much more artistic name than the English “studies.”…..sounds almost scientific.  In Italian they are referred to as Bozetta.  
 
There are now many Bozetta lying around my studio and spa.  And even Crystal has caught on to what I’m looking for.  She will often present a pose within minutes before I am even ready to work that is exactly what I’m looking for.   This silent communication between artist and model is so satisfying and one of the quiet rewards of consistent focused work.  I am blessed to have this connection with Crystal.  
 
Before she started taking her clothes off for me, something that is always rarified even in the defined environment of a working studio with doors open to a busy spa, I did a portrait of her just sitting calmly in a chair.  It was a fair if strained success.  I had not done a portrait in clay in almost 30 years.  So i was a bit rusty and unsure of what I wanted to accomplish other than getting to know my new model and giving her a chance to get comfortable with me.  
 
Well, 2 years later I wanted to take the measure of my progress and honor her with a fresher vision in clay.  I don’t know that this second version is better than the first.  These things are so subjective.   But it is definitely more poised and relaxed. And I find myself pausing for a moment to look at it every time I pass through the lobby where it is displayed. Crystal is a beautiful woman and smart enough to know that.  She doesn’t need a sculpture to reassure her of her majestic poise informed by her former career as a professional ballet dancer and natural long lines and cool demeanor.  But it doesn’t hurt that this second version captures and accentuates those qualities.  
 
“Why not” would have been so much simpler.  But the explication was hopefully worth it.  Crystal certainly deserves having this story told.  She has been and is likely to be the catalyst and inspiration for many more beautiful creations.  

“Tiny Torso”
Cast and painted plaster
6” x 2” x 2”
2022
 

Great things sometimes come in small packages.   And cliches sometimes actually have a kernel of truth.  This little torso is about 5” long.  I did the original while sitting on the toilet squeezing a piece of clay.   I know that sounds bad but stay with me.  I had my pants securely belted around my waste.   The toilet was not attached to the floor but rather sitting in my studio waiting for a remodel project to reach the stage where its install was the next step.   And the clay was unfired potter’s clay and I was squeezing it with my hands.  
 
After it dried I decided to experiment with something I had seen on you tube…making a mold with construction grade silicone caulk, the kind that is used for remodel projects …especially in bathrooms…around sinks and toilets.  It worked….sort of.  I got one cast out of the mold…..in plaster.   I painted it black and set it on my shelf. And there is sat for nearly a year.  
 
One day, shortly after starting a weekly meet up with a new model, I saw this sitting there.  I was struck by the fullness of its volumes, the tension and grace and the power of its tiny little torso….no arms, legs or head.  
 
It is fair to say that every figure you see on this site since 2021 is inspired by this little piece.  

“Mediocrity”
Unfired clay
24” x 20” x 2”
2022
 
Usually when an artist does a second version of a sculpture or painting, the second one turns out more abstract and looser than the first.  But here is a case where the second version is more realistic and more “complete” by conventional standards than the first one.  And I don’t know why.  
 
I did the second version for various reasons.   One reason was that I was curious if I could maintain the emotional directness of the figure with arms and feet.  Unfortunately it does not.  This piece is dull and uninteresting especially when compared to the first one.  Yes, it has clearly defined arms and hands but these add nothing to the piece.  Moreover it just falls flat. 
Secondly, I really liked the first one and wondered if I could start with the same idea and create another piece that was even more intense.  But again, this one falls measurably short from the original.  And so, here it is, a cute “character piece” that reminds me of Mozart’s lesser known contemporary, Solieri’s famous quote, “Mediocrity is everywhere.”   Yes, that shall be the name of this piece.  “Mediocrity”.  
 
It is a perfectly ok piece.   And I’m ok with that too.  

“Muse”
Unfired ceramic clay
30” x 15” x15”
2022

This one just came out in one sitting.  Without a model. But with many sculptures I have seen over the last 30 years.   There are the Indian sculptures carved in stone in the basement of the Norton Simon museum in Pasadena.   And 2 particular sculptures by Rodin.   I included two images of those sculptures here on the site.   And one of the Indian pieces.
 
These sculptures did not just inspire me in the obvious ways…..like what they look like, how they distort the figure , the compactness and tumescence of their forms.   But also in the way Rodin did several versions of them.   In fact, it is hard to say where his work entitled “Eve” ends and “Meditation” starts.   The images I featured here are of the versions that I could find on the internet that most match my memories of these pieces.   
 
The piece here of my work is the first of 2 versions that have already come out.  The second one is a little more realistic than this one for reasons I don’t understand yet.   I suspect it is like an inbreathe one takes before exerting themselves like lifting something heavy or jumping over a puddle of murky water.  Yes….I feel another piece coming out of this group of Robin’s and my own work and the ancient Indian carvings in the basement.  It won’t be as easy as this one.  It will be heavier and less certain.  
 

“Circle of Dreamers”
12 individual clay figure sketches 
Each figure approximately 10” x 12” x 12”
2022

This is an elaborate study or sketch for a much larger piece.  The final vision is for each figure to be life size and arranged on a pedestal about eye level and arranged in a large circle allowing the viewer to roam freely in and around the individual sculptures.  In the center there will be an empty dias that viewers can climb on and see the sculptures slightly from above.  
 
For a long time I have been fascinated by circular cosmologies: the wheel of fortune, the circle of life, the circular nature of zodiacs and most recently the very way our calendar is constructed….on the premise of a circle in imitation of the way the earth revolves around the sun.  Recently I even wrote a book about America’s holidays and one of the premises of the book is that the holidays are arranged either by design or chance along basic geometric principles that help give them their resonance and strength.  
 
For a long time I have also wanted to paint a large painting about 16’ square.   Imagine a person lying naked on top of another on top of another and another and so on. But not in a big pile from top to bottom.  Instead they would be arranged in a kind of doughnut shape.  Seen from the side.  All ages, races , sizes and types of people.  It would be circle a circle of humanity.  
 
There could be many versions of this idea of course.  Heads all towards the center.  Heads out.  Only 4 people for the 4 times of day.  12 people for the 12 months.  As many as possible ….just cause.   And so on.  
 
Well….one day….as this usually goes…the idea just popped into my head.   Why not make a sculptural version of this.  The engineering required to bolt large heavy sculptures to a wall seemed daunting so I moved on to pedestals.  I also like the idea of being able to walk around the pieces and experience them this way ….getting overwhelmed by them rather than simply looking at them.  
 
The idea for this group would be that they are all people struggling to sleep.  The process of slipping from one world to the next is fascinating to me.  And I believe one of the defining issues of our time.  So many people struggle with sleep.  Falling asleep and and falling into a deep enough sleep to be truly rested.  These struggles are beautifully revealing to me and of course powerful metaphors of we as a people and as individuals struggle to transform ourselves from the quotidian materialistic era we live in to place of deeper consciousness and connectedness in our sleep.  From the world of measure and the finite, to the world of mystery and the unmeasurable.  

“The accidental masterpiece”
Unfired clay/ black epoxy/wood
20” x 14” x 14”
1989 and 2022.  (Unfinished)

In 1999 I did a lot of sculpture.  Among other things, I made portraits from life of many of my friends and students.  I don’t remember who this woman was.  But her bust sat on my shelf for many years.  Since it is made of unfired ceramic clay over chicken wire and wood it was not possible to fire it.  So to preserve it I poured hot wax over it.  That helped. But since there is a stick of wood protruding from the bottom a little further than the base of the clay it is very unstable.  It wobbles.  
 
Over the ensuing 30 plus years since I made this bust I did a lot of paintings and theatrical presentations.  I also did a lot of body painting and this invariably led to pouring paint directly on to my models.  
 
The act of pouring paint on a model is much more complex than one would think.  Even with total consent and in a highly cultivated setting it feels a little exploitative….like throwing a pie in someone’s face.   And yet unlike a pie in the face, pouring paint is sensual and slow.  There is time for the model to really feel the cool paint moving along their skin.   Gravity and their form are in a slow motion dance for the viewer’s eye and the result is surprisingly sexy.   And like all good sexy moments…a bit messy.  
 
It’s also wasteful.   Most of the paint ends up on the floor.  And in order to get the desired sensations and “look” one has to have a real excess of paint.  As a painter who prides himself with working with an economy of means, this has always been a little discomforting.  
 
Nevertheless, the results are compelling.  
 
One day, I was pouring black epoxy in my workshop to help preserve a slab of wood.  I prepared too much and was thinking about what to do with the extra product.  As I was pondering this, I looked up and saw this portrait bust on my shelf.   I took it down, set it on a wooden plinth and poured the remaining epoxy over its head.  Just like a real head, the epoxy slowly oozed down the hollows and rises of her face and skull.  And the excess pooled on the plinth underneath and around her.  
 
Epoxy is a powerful glue so the head was now firmly attached to the wooden plinth making it a much more practical work of art.  But more importantly, the affect of the black epoxy was disturbingly both sensual and upsetting.  
 
Had she been defiled.  Was this a gush of crude oil?  Does her bust represent nature being sexualized and exploited at the same time?   Is there an inseparable entanglement of excess and exploitation?   Is there anything inherently bad in this?   Does beauty trump evil?   
 
It is said that the measure of a true work of art is the degree to which it raises, not answers questions.  If that is true, this is my accidental masterpiece.

“Homage to Iris”
Unfired clay
24” x 20” x 12”
2022
 

Iris is one of the messengers of the gods in Greek mythology.  Like Hermes, her male counterpart, they are able to traverse between different worlds or constructs.   And like Jesus, the Christian version of this same archetype, they have a messianic mission….to remind humans of their divine nature and that the journey to discover this is a painful messy and unsafe process.   
 
Rodin made a sculpture in honor of Iris.   I first saw it over 30 years ago.  After all these years I can not stop thinking about it.  
 
I have wanted to do a sculpture inspired by Robin’s.   My vision for Iris called for some of the same physicality and muscular tension.   I also wanted the raw “in your face” carnal sexual element that is so much a part of the Rodin Iris.    But I wanted my Iris to be more of nature itself, not just allusions to rippling and gnarled wood and rocky crags, but also actual entropy and collapse.  I wanted her to be sagging and twisted as well as swelling and tumescent.  And lastly, I want a plant growing out of the top of her torso.   A real plant ….that will need to be watered regularly and will eventually die and need to be replaced.  
 
This is my first attempt at that vision.  And here is a picture of Robin’s Iris. At some point I will do another version which will bring back a little more of the human anatomy and proper alignment of bone and muscle.   And of course….it will be bigger.  
 

“Small Bozetta”
Unfired clay
8” x 8” x8”
2022

“Seated Bozetta”   
Unfired clay
12” x 10” x10”
2022

I do these sketches for 2 reasons.  The first is to work out the idea with a live model.  The second reason is so that I have some visual aide when I make the work larger and with material not suitable to have a person sitting around naked. Sometimes the material is toxic or just too dusty.  And often the process is just too slow.  
 

“Large Bozetta”
Unfired clay
24” x 8” x 8”
2022

When is a piece too big to be a Bozetta?  I’m not sure what the official limit is. But like a Bozetta of the more typical size…. about one third the scale of this, it is meant as a study for a larger piece.  In this case it is meant as a study for a much larger piece. But since we live in an era that has an appreciation for the creative spark, we love seeing these pieces that are more about working out an idea than presenting a finished concept.  In fact, I even fussed over the finished-unfinished aspects of it so as to have it work as a complete work of art meant to be presented and appreciated as a complete work of art.  

It was also an experiment with firing. Could I fire a piece this big? Happily, yes, it fired without breaking. And so I spray painted it black of course. 

Perhaps someday I’ll figure out how to make it six feet tall. 

“War Chest”
Mixed media
12” x 12” x 12”
2022
 
This is a direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  It is an intuitive response to “things” you hear about in the news with respect to war.  Things like “war chest” “gold reserves” “human costs” “collateral damage” “targeting civilians” and so on.   These terms all are reasonable attempts to communicate intelligently about what is going on and what various factions may be thinking.   They also resonate at a deeper level as well and begin to create their own hybrid constructs beyond their rational meaning in our unconscious.   They surface as dreams and may collect to form chronic emotional states like depression or anxiety.  
 
They also tend to surface as intuitive symbolic leaps like this piece.   The face is a cast from a clay sketch I did of my friend Crystal.   It has an individual likeness but it is also generalized enough to simply be a person…not an individual.   This is in fact an unfired squeeze casting from a plaster mold I made off the original clay bust I created.   This squeeze cast sat around my studio over a year not doing anything.  
 
Then, one day while listening to the news about the war in Ukraine I heard the word “war chest” mentioned.  In the same news cast there was talk about the cost of human lives as a result of the war.  My eye landed on this old wooden box on one of my shelves.  And instantly I knew what to do.  I spray painted the face gold conflating material wealth with human lives and put it in this box which could be both a war chest or a coffin.  Something precious yet horrifying.  And for some reason the face needed to rest on a nest of tangled wires.    
 
It became clear immediately that the lid would not shut.  The face is too big.  And without hesitation I decided that was perfect.  One can not shut the lid on the human face of the war and one can not seal the war chest for its safe keeping.  It is open and vulnerable.  
 
As for the tangled wires….who knows.  That’s just what my intuition demanded so there it is.    

“Ceramic Figure”
Unfired clay
12” x 10” x 10”
2022
 
On one level this is a simple figure sketch in clay referred to as Bozeta in Italian where the idea of doing such a thing probably originated during the early Renaissance.  It is unfired because it would probably blow up in the kiln because it has air pockets and chopsticks stuck in it to support its own weight while being created.   Those would ignite and expand faster than the clay and cause it to shatter.
 

Also, it can be preserved with products not available in Renaissance Italy such as polyurethane which when applied to the unfired clay will penetrate deeply and harden the piece.  It would still break if it was dropped, but so would a fired piece of clay.   On of the ironies of sculpture is that it is both more durable than most art forms and yet more fragile.   If undisturbed it will not fade or crumble like a painting.   On the other hand, if moved carelessly it will break.   
 
I have included this piece here to show how I am beginning to think about the photo of the sculpture as a work of art in its own right.   Here, I placed it in front of one of my recent paintings.   The contrast is visually rich.   However, what also interests me is the play of various levels of distortion and abstraction in the figure and the painting both separately and in contrast to each other.   This photograph is itself a sketch….a recording and a process of a developing idea.