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| SOLAR SENTINEL |
Over the last 35 years I have been making art, that, to the best of my
abilities, attempted to fill the world with beauty and joy. My artistic endeavors
have taken me across America
brought both public and personal satisfaction to me as well as to the supporters
and friends of my work. This being said, I have always felt in my heart that art
should be more than just a pretty object. Throughout my career I have viewed
the example set by trees to be the perfect and highest form of beauty. These
‘creatures’ from a sovereign and noble race, not only fill our lives with visual
beauty, mark the passing of the seasons, house, warm and shade us but, most
importantly, are the very reason we can breathe. It is this miracle that I would
like to imitate by building my sculpture to not only fill space with beauty but
also to contribute directly toward their own sustainability and the setting into
which they are placed.
Even with an artist’s arrogance I have no pretensions of thinking that I can
achieve something as perfect as a living tree, however, using lessons learned
from years of study and observation of the working cycles of energy that the
flora of this planet contribute, I believe that I can make my art into something
more than just trophies for some corporate plaza.
To be sure art must, through its beauty, speak to our inner life, and anchor
us in the human need for expression. These sculptures must remain art with a
capital ‘A’. At the same time it is the artists’ responsibility to imagine new
paradigms and, through their skills, bring these dreams into being.
Erected artifacts that can visually delight, and at the same moment heat a
building, provide hot water or in some way lessen the ecological impact of their
footprint, are easily within our grasp. New technologies and research have
added to our palette new and exciting tools. From simple evacuated tubes for
solar collection, weather resistant materials and finishes, to elaborate computer
modeling, today’s artists have at their command many tools that even
Leonardo could not have guessed at.
It is the adventure of our lives, standing on the shoulders of giants we gaze
into a new millennium. Our generation’s standard bearers embrace earth friendly
technologies perhaps more than any who have come before. After centuries of
squandering our resources we can now move forward. The lessons of the forest,
the incredible biodiversity of this planet and the steady clockwork of our solar
cycles can enrich our lives, build our cities anew, and once again connect us to
the stars from which we sprang.
