Below the Illusion of God and Time is a work about the illusions of human-made and created ways of organizing our planet. It was kinetic and the round and arrow forms spun while the red light from behind illuminated the work in the collection of Michelle Fortnum.
Below is the soft sculpture Polymorphic Transmissions created with latex rubber, motors, a custom-made color controller, and fiber optics. To make this work, I coated machine and motor parts with latex and was fascinated by how they looked a bit like human or animal organs.
When the work was activated, concentric cams caused the work to vibrate, and the hairs composed of the fiber optics would spin and change color most beautifully.
This was fortunate as it induced this lovely young woman, Amy Youngs, to venture into my studio, and she had questions about the work and came to learn more about how to use fiber optics. Later, Amy created wonder fiber optic pillows, and we have collaborated in some fashion ever since. At this point, I have been married and together with Amy Youngs for 33 years.
The work Conception, Is an abstraction of the process of sperm penetrating an egg. The form on the right, references cellular mitosis, and the form on the left is an abstraction of a tiny fetus. For this work, I found the photography and writings of Lennart Nilsson in the book A Child is Born to be most inspirational.
The rhythmic line and form of the work were intended to create a sense of dynamism and movement.
Below, two abstract creatures break off the canvas and meet for the first time. I was interested in the delicate interplay of grids and thin red threads linking the entities as they reach out to each other to communicate. The materials were industrial bedding, red and black cardboard, binder rings, red threads, and broken auto glass.
Further below, my early works were formal sculptures, which often referred to biological processes.
Mitosis (1986) was an abstraction of a cell splitting into two. It was built and carved from Hydrocal plaster with a marble base.
Below was a model for a large-scale sculptural instrument that could be played by the viewer. The original was clay, destroyed in the 1989 SF earthquake, and later rebuilt in plaster.
Abstraction below was composed of spaghetti, steel brackets, acrylic paint, and black electrical tape.
