Creative Process

The year has burst from the gate like a race horse. I’m not sure why, but this go ’round seems particularly character-building. I suppose you can’t judge a book by its cover, and perhaps you can’t judge a year by the first few days either.

But if you could…

[Read more…] about The View

Hello all and happy New Year!

We are in the midst of an unseasonably warm spell followed closely on the heels of an unseasonably cold spell. Our lone duck, the sole survivor of a flock once 29 strong, has been sleeping on the pond – a choice we’ve questioned at various points over the past few weeks. A duck on an open pond is safe from predators. A duck frozen into a pond is dinner.

[Read more…] about Duck Tracks (Happy New Year!)

I recently finished a commission. Several actually, but this one was a bit different. It was based on an actual place, a metal incarnation of someone’s lived experience. A different sort of challenge. A lot of artists get asked to do commissions that amount to can you make this match my couch? I get asked, can you make this match my memory?

[Read more…] about Catch A Butterfly

The barn swallows built a nest above my studio door. They usually build one somewhere along the roofline, but often on the back side where I can’t so easily see it.

For weeks I heard them working as I worked, chittering to each other as they took turns resting on the curved stem of a steel lamp. I’d catch glimpses of them after a morning rain scooping up mouthfuls of mud to do their chinking. One day, once the nest was complete, I saw the boy pick up a down feather recently preened from one of our ducks and give it to the girl to line the nest: Hi honey; I brought you a comforter. 

[Read more…] about Just Imagine