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 as well as abroad. These many projects have

     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.