For many years I was a research geochemist studying various fascinating scientific puzzles such as the formation of meteorites and the future safety of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. Now, I find that being a professional artist tests many of the same skills that I used as a scientist, such as the ability to focus, persevere, and solve problems creatively. Yet being an artist also requires that I explore my aesthetic appreciation of the forms, textures and colors that surround me and develop the means to communicate my opinions of them effectively to others. It's a nontrivial task, but fortunately, I like a good challenge.

As a direct stone carver, I must focus on the refinement of design elements during the entire time that I am working to complete a stone sculpture. I am constantly critiquing and refining my own artistic sensibilities, and the meditative focus that I feel as I simultaneously sculpt and design is frankly intoxicating.

My sculptures address the classic question of what is beauty by presenting an arrangement of artistic features that are beautiful to me. The goal of this approach is that, in responding to this question, viewers will learn something about the artist, as well as themselves. I struggle to communicate my human capacity to observe, think and feel through my perception of beauty. This process should benefit the viewer, because he or she cannot reject or embrace my notions of beauty without first considering his own.

I work to maximize my expression of beauty in a sculpture by acknowledging the physical properties and natural beauty of the stone that I’m sculpting. For example, I designed the sculpture “Empathy” with light in mind. The stone -- “italian ice” alabaster -- transmits light, and has a uniform texture and color that highlights the form and movement of the sculpture. Numerous folds and crevices in the sculpture provide thin places in the rock for light to pass through, while also generating an array of soft shadows that become a dynamic part of the sculpture with changes in the lighting. Yet, “Empathy” is a sculpture of sharp contrasts -- contrasts between the frosted, translucent white sculpture and the shiny, opaque black base on which it rests, between the colorless mass of alabaster and its single earthy brown band of color, and between one viewpoint of the design and any other. The sculpture is a study of the connections, or intersecting planes, that bring each of these contrasting design elements together. Identifying the most elegant connections between the various design elements of a sculpture is an art, and it is one that I am happy to practice regularly as a direct carver.