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| Detail of "It Takes A Crooked Stick to Float A Crooked Mile" |
It just so happens that I'm working on mine for my upcoming exhibit in two weeks.
I have written many artist's statements over the years and they're NEVER easy to write.
If you're unfamiliar with an Artist's Statement, it's basically an introduction to one's art. They're not very long, somewhere around 3-5 paragraphs, and yet if it's badly written it can diminish what could otherwise be a spectacular display of creative endeavor.
I read in Wikipedia that Artist's Statements began in the 1990s, so artists before that time didn't have to worry about this aspect of introducing someone to their art.
Not true today. Now when an Artist's Statement is hung on the gallery wall (as mine will be) it becomes an invitation, an explanation and an element to the installation itself.
In this brief statement I want to tell you why I make my art and what inspires me to make it. I want you to understand what it means to me and what makes it special. I need to describe my work, not because you're not there to see it, but because I want you to know more.
For this exhibit of my flood stick art, I want to draw you into what I consider a magical world of sticks from a river. Each wall sculpture tells a story and every 3-D sculpture has its own personality.
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| Detail of "Wood Sprite" |
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| Detail of "Fish Bait" |
It is an awesome task to assign a name, I think. It says,
"These sticks floated down the Cache la Poudre River and lodged in a place where I could find them, harvest them, select just the right pieces and haul them home where I washed them, sorted them and then was inspired to use them creatively.
No longer are they nameless sticks, twigs, branches and chunks of wood bobbing on wild flood waters. Nope. Now they are "Tangled" or "Bend Like A Willow" or "River Dancer" or "Wild Thing."
To me they emit emotion and churn up mysterious back stories.
Did this strange wood float half a mile or 125 miles to reach me?
Was this charred chunk of wood from a happy campfire or a raging wild fire?
Did this wood float unencumbered down 6,000 feet in elevation or was it just up the bend waiting for another Hundred Year Flood?
Uh-huh. Now you can see why it's so challenging to write an Artist's Statement.
Now I imagine you are dying to read my Artist's Statement for Mastery-In-Nature. Okay, it's a first draft but here it is:
Artist's Statement
When I stand on the banks of the Cache La Poudre River and hold a flood stick, as I refer to it, I feel connected to a historic river that has its beginnings high in Rocky Mountain National Park and ultimately empties into the Great Gulf of Mexico.
It is a connection to past, present and future as well as a 126 mile journey from the high country wilderness to me in Windsor. This worn, well-traveled stick somehow survived a journey down through the mountains, emerging from the foothills, dropping over 6,000 feet in elevation and somehow got caught here at this place where I have found it.
After both the fall and spring flooding of the Cache la Poudre River I was attracted to the flotsam left by water now departed. As a sculptor whose work is abstract and imaginative, I could not resist it.
As I began poking into piles and piles of stick jams, as I refer to them, I discovered beautiful and graceful sticks; charred chunks of wood I can only imagine survived mountain wild fires; twisty and funky sticks that jumped into my arms; and goofy, odd-shaped pieces with mysterious personalities.
My flood stick sculptures are created with carefully selected sticks, washed, cleaned, sun-dried and arranged in a palette on my deck according to size, shape, texture and hue. I combine each piece with found objects such as fishing lures, battered flip-flops, snarls of fishing line, a baby's pacifier and feathers from the riverbank.
Each sculpture tells its own story. Each is unique. Each is a connection to the beauty and power of our very own Cache la Poudre River.
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