Artist Statement

My mixed-media box constructions represent imaginary retreats, destinations of the mind where I arrange my visual world. Within the boxes are compositions of found objects – old tools, discarded game pieces, twigs, rocks. They are my medium and I seek them out everywhere I go, on the beach, in the woods, and especially in junk shops. I arrange them intuitively to create compositions and then surround them with box-like structures to define their architectural spaces. The images that result are personal reflections of the kind of aesthetic solitude that has always been important to me.

In my 30s I became a serious book artist and internalized the meticulous craftsmanship that bookbinding demands. The tools, materials, techniques, and skills of bookbinding are still the foundations of my artistic process. A workshop on architectural books introduced me to three-dimensional structures and eventually led to my altarpiece constructions. These multi-chambered box constructions are influenced in form and composition by an earlier study of medieval altarpieces. Because they open like a book and because their spaces are manipulated like pages, I often exhibit them as artist’s books.

Most often my images are composed within single-chambered boxes that hang on the wall. They are constructed of heavy-duty display board and covered with handmade Japanese papers. Light enters their interior spaces through window and skylight openings most often covered with mica. Many of my box constructions have personal narrative content, such as a lost love, homage to a friend, or a fishing expedition. Others are purely abstract, directly inspired by travel in Japan and study of Japanese aesthetics found in temple design, the architecture of Tadeo Ando, or the photography of Hiroshi Sugimoto. Interior Alaska and Downeast Maine have inspired their own series of boxes, each relating a deep connection to their respective landscape, space, light, and color. With all of my boxes, I strive for intimacy, contemplation, and stillness in time and place.

Miniature essays by writer Frank Soos accompany many of my constructions. For the past five years Frank and I have collaborated in this exploration of space, form, and words. The process begins with my completed box to which Frank responds with his own images and metaphors. The result is interplay between art and text designed to provoke viewers to enter the dialogue.

I maintain studios in Fairbanks, Alaska and Corea, Maine.