Yogi Bera is quoted as saying, “when you come to a fork in the road, take it”. This body of work is dedicated to those forks. For the past 8 years I’ve been working with the figure. Drawing in charcoal on paper is my favorite way to interpret the form. In a blended style of realism and abstraction, I can achieve the confident stroke of the line with the randomness of mark making, creating a skewed and playful representation of that moment in time. The figure groups I attend, keep me drawing from life and involved with the art community. Early in the fall of 2003, I was gifted with Photoshop 7.0. It was a long period of many unsuccessful attempts using the program. Once I stumbled onto my first interesting image experimenting with all the many tools such as the Poster Edge and Gradient Map, the figures were breathing new life in this new medium, ever changing with the click of the mouse. November 2006 I attended an art opening of a friend. Her interpretations of landscapes were done using acrylic paint and collage. They made an indelible impression on me. After that show I spent weeks wading through all the inkjet prints I had made and started cutting paper and glueing pieces together. The collage is a great vehicle to blend many styles and images into one. My interest was starting to lean toward the three dimensional. I first made a model of the drawing in Papier Mache. After working with that for awhile and not producing a form I was happy with, I found myself at the fork, I took it and I found myself in Arizona casting bronze and silver. I remember driving into Storm King a few years back and being mesmerized by the huge sculptures that accent the beautiful landscape. The show that summer was the retrospect of the works of David Smith. Once there, I knew I’d see many of the pieces I had studied while in school but now in 3-D and on their grand scale. What I didn’t expect, all lined up on mantels and around the inside room, commanding the same attention as the works outside, were his maquettes. Some made of silver, others of bronze and his trademark sheet metal. Altogether they were an intimate look into the workings of an artist. I really enjoyed the size, walking around them and taking in their presence. Recently, I was lucky enough to work with a foundry in Arizona casting bronze. Sculpting the wax was like drawing with charcoal on paper, taking the blank blocks of the wax and giving them substance. Over the years I have traveled around absorbing what life has to offer. I’ve taken drawing classes in many different cities, leaving Schenectady with what I know and bringing back here what I’ve learned. I’ve drawn the figure since the early days in Arizona and will continue doing so for the rest of my life. The drawing groups may change but the mission to draw the figure and to express as an artist won’t. I have always appreciated the fact that drawing from life feeds new energy into every drawing and with this background it’s evident that the figurative incorporated itself into the wax and deeper into the bronze. The inspiration for these pieces were the spires of stone in the deserts of the west, in particular Benson, AZ and the drive up to Mt. Lemmon, AZ. Time and the elements have washed away the earth leaving these great monuments. Although my bronzes are not great monuments yet, they are intimate reminders of a time when my mind was free of stuff and only creativity flowed. It was very satisfying to take that intangible flow and cast it into the tangible. I started again with paper collages. This time the paper I used got a bit better and the colors became brighter . What I wanted was to make my drawings three dimensional. While talking with friends it was suggested that I use transparencies and stack them to create depth. I tried that and stacked the transparencies between glass. As the next layer of glass went on, the images became distorted and darker. The iron in the glass was casting a heavy murky green color. After investigating glass, I switched to museum glass, the clarity was superb. The images started to change. With each layer, I was physically able to separate the levels of depth and create a three dimensional space, two dimensionally. Enjoy the show