The artist writes:
Boats.
The most beautiful form created by people, for me, is the hull of a boat. While on the Oregon coast one winter, I spent many hours at a couple of dry docks with my watercolors and camera collecting images of boats. Many boats were in for repair and re painting – some old wooden boats just quietly and gracefully weathering away.
Back in Montana, I was given a pile of about 30 black cardboard tubes. Each tube contained a plan for a boat, a sloop, skiff, yacht, catamaran, trawler, dinghy, cutter, ketch, schooner. There were plans for boats with sails or engines, or both; fishing boats and boats for pleasure.
I began by just admiring them and moved on to playing and reconfiguring. What you see is the result of that serious, playful interaction.
Tools.
The tool drawings began with the drawing of brushes, inspired by the window decor in a little frame shop on an Oregon main street. I have a great admiration for all kinds of technical illustration; biological, anatomical, medical architectural, engineering and map-making.
My dad was a road engineer, surveyor and draftsman. I inherit from him my love for precision drawing and the inclination to record detail. I appreciate the challenge of acute observation with manual dexterity.
This show includes two collaborations with Oregon sculptor, Kell Devoll. Much of the work is framed by Carol Malley, the proprietor of the little frame shop.
