I grew up observing my Grandfather. He had made his living as a miner before being forced to retire due to the industry’s considerable effect on his health. Afterwards his time was consumed at home unable to do many of the things he had spent his life working at. In a chair in his front yard he would sit for hours watching the world pass. During this time he would often take a stick that had fallen from the large tree he sat beneath and use his pocketknife to slowly carve it away. He never made anything beyond the mass of shavings that covered the ground at his feet but the true importance of this act was not what was made, but rather the process of making. Decades of regimented hard work and labor had instilled within him a sense for repetition, routine, and redundant actions. Within the activity of whittling I believe he found a sense of being, a quiet almost spiritual process that echoed years of labor, daily struggle and identity.

This observation, perhaps more than any other, shaped my relationship to the world. It establishes the basis of my sense for routine and focus toward cumulative acts. This need drives my work and manifests itself within the redundancy of hammer-strikes, incised lines, or labor-intensive constructions. The pursuits of these actions provide me a sense of center that often remains elusive within the static of the everyday. These works are born within opposition to this environmental noise, it is my hope that they meet the viewer in a manner which creates moments of quiet observation that provide a revelation toward each person’s own sense of being.