REGENHARDT GALLERY AT SHRODE ART CENTER

Artist Statement:

Art to me has always been about creative problem solving, both in my personal work and in my teaching practices as an art instructor. My favorite artworks generally tend to be utilitarian in nature, and my preferred medium is wood. I like the natural characteristics of it, the challenge of “reading” the wood and making something from it in harmony with its natural attributes. I enjoy how no two pieces are alike and am fascinated with pushing the limits of what it is capable of. Wood is a great teacher.

Wood art to me is a multi-faceted medium. There is an enormous database of wood species, each of which has known traits that play different roles within my work. It is well known in the world of wooden instruments that different woods have different tonal properties, but my interest in making wooden instruments lies primarily in using non-traditional wood species native to my region, hence the title “Native Strings”. I draw much of this interest from my work as a bowyer making selfbows from native species of wood. The species I choose for bow making have to be dense but elastic and little consideration goes into the aesthetics of a selfbow; they just turn out beautiful on their own accord. This, I believe, is simply due to the nature of the product and following one growth ring faithfully down the back of the bow makes for a stunning piece of wood.

While I am no musician, and probably not much of a luthier; as an artist/maker, I thoroughly enjoy the meticulousness involved in making a wooden instrument, especially a wooden instrument. Making an instrument from scratch is, in my opinion, the finest form of woodworking, and few forms of woodworking require such tolerances as that of the luthier. Much care and consideration must be taken with each instrument to ensure that it performs properly and sounds as it should. Instruments also require the utmost care in finishing, so I prefer a hand-rubbed oil finish for my instruments. Such a method offers a rich, lustrous finish that enhances the natural beauty of the wood rather than distracting from it with a high gloss urethane.

I draw much of my knowledge of local tree species from my instinctive love of nature and from more than a decade of building wooden longbows. Bow building, specifically selfbow building, has become my favorite form of art making. For a long time, I did not necessarily consider building traditional bows to be a form of art, and I am still not sure it is. However, the more I reflect on the art of building wooden selfbows, the more I consider it to be a form of sculpture. To make a proper selfbow, a bowyer must take time and care in considering different designs for the specific stave in hand, “read” the grain carefully, and follow the grain faithfully. Without such care, a stave will fail under the stress of full draw, likely in a violent explosion of splinters. Ask me how I know!

As I mentioned in the beginning of my statement, I like utilitarian art, art with a purpose or a use. Being a hunter and a woodsman, I use the selfbows I make and the arrowheads I knap, and have harvested several animals with the art I create. Hunting is one way I center myself with nature, and using equipment I make brings me even closer.