Artist Statements
2006 - The ubiquitous debate in glass, “is it art or is it craft” has always appeared to me as a doorway through which to explore the incredible medium of glass.
2005 - My work concerns itself with images of archetypal dimension, drawing from religion, myth and indigenous folk art from around the world to convey what Dr. Carl Jung has called “the language of the psyche”.
2004 - I am at heart a three dimensional artist, and this is the reason I love using glass as my medium. The clear glass transmits images through itself, allowing me to turn an object of surfaces into an object with both surfaces and an interior.
2004 - There is a famous Zen story about the Roshi who trying to enlighten his student to an experience of the Moon points to it, only to have the student stare intently at his finger.
2001 - As an artist I am most interested in the hand made quality of objects. This hand made quality invariably includes many imperfections and blemishes.
2000 - For over 15 years my work has explored the power of myth and the images that comprise it. This exploration has brought me into the realm of cultures and religions the world over and throughout time.
1999 - What is it that we celebrate as the Earth makes yet another of its ceaseless revolutions around the sun? Is it the passing of the planet past an arbitrary point in space? Of course not.
1994 - Science and rationalism have sheared away the rich inner life of many of us, but art making has brought it back into being for me.
1992 - As an artist and a human being I am concerned with the notion of the soul as a bridge between our conscious self and our larger self, or what the Hindus call “Atman”, that which includes the totality of our being, unfathomable, mysterious and ultimately inaccessible to our rational mind.
1990 - If someone were to ask me how I see myself, how best to describe my work, and myself my response would be "as a mystic." I am a man in search of the numinous, that which cannot be defined or understood by the rational mind.
1987 - I began to work in glass as an apprentice to Tom Philabaum in 1981. My skills developed rapidly and by 1983 I was a partner in Philabaum/Carlson studios, Tucson Az., where I stayed until 1986.