Steel Works
  
The nooks and crannies that we hide in, the doors that open only so far, the secrets we keep, the cubicles that we create for ourselves...these are what my work is about. Durability and strength form a basic principle for my work.
 
These sculptures revolve around the "Defense Systems" that I and others employ to keep the world at a safe distance. While my pieces can physically defend themselves, they are more of an abstract vision of a mental or emotional defense system. What concerns me is making an expressive statement about a person and how they defend themselves, and in some cases how these defenses are broken down to expose the naked truth.

- Statement accompanied BFA exhibition 1996.
A number of the pieces that exist on this page are from the Cube series, which was my BFA show, but this series was informed by a plethora of other pieces that utilized the"Defense Systems" approach.

These sculptures, like the Cage/Shell series (fig 11) took on other styles and geometric forms: spheres, pyramids, rectangles.

During the Cube series my work became more interactively kinetic containing doors, levers, and secret compartments. The mechanisms became increasingly complex and culminated into a puzzle like piece entitled Allegory of the Self (above), which was the end of that style.

I refer to these pieces as my "Old Steel Works," but I still revisit the "Defense Systems" theme now and again. I have added an implied removable central figure in these later sculptures (fig 13, 14, 15).

                          Images (on left)                         
fig 1.......Evolution 3
fig 2.......Relinquished Ties
fig 3.......From all sides
fig 4.......Exposed Skeleton
fig 5.......Only So Far
fig 6.......Birds of a Feather
fig 7.......Untitled
fig 8.......Untitled
fig 9.......Untitled
fig 10.....Safe
fig 11.....Cage/Shell - "The Pod"
fig 12.....Sour Grapes
fig 13.....Pressure Bolted 2
fig 14.....Pressure Bolted 1
fig 15.....Cage/Shell - opened