The Archive represents a cross-section of select works created over the past three decades that thematically explore connections and/or disconnections that we have to one another, to environmental and technological change, to the unknown past and recently forgotten present - while speculating upon a pending future. The work incorporated themes arisen out of lived experiences during times of change, great promise and trepidation. The work embodied an expressed tension. Conceptually it has often been reactive and physically illustrative in it's utilization of materials and attempts to poetically convey greater intentions in a visual format. Current work undertaken continues to build upon many of these former narratives and themes.
Enigma
Relocating to downtown Los Angeles in 1990 from a quiet lakeside community in British Columbia provided a greater perspective on the human condition in a world fraught with mixed messages, where hope could be found around any corner pitted against hopelessness. This decades long experience stimulated the creation of work often focused on these coexisting disparate tensions. Themes formerly explored touched upon various narratives involving human to human interface, some of which have resurfaced in recent times. As it is often said: 'the more things change, the more they remain the same', as I've found to be the case with human nature.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
An opportunity to explore the medium of glass at the Pilchuck Glass School led to the creation of a body of work which served to prompt questions about transience - the fragility of the environment, survival and adaptation, extinction and human intervention.
In Search of Eden
Confronting new technologies, balancing trepidation with optimism played a significant role in my work during the 90’s which visually attempted to convey this palpable tension. The work provoked questions about how our relationship to technology would manifest itself. Many of these speculations have been realized as now decades later we grapple with reliance and dependency issues, environmental impact as technology has invisibly infiltrated every aspect of our lives like weeds out of control yet controlling us. This early work pondered upon thwarted human potential replaced in lieu of economic gain facilitated through new production technologies. The garden/nature metaphor was symbolically employed as marketing strategies at the time were already hijacking nature-related language such as cultivating disc farms, growing data-bases with far-reaching roots and spreading branches, verbiage which continues today as we merrily tweet and stream away into an AI future.
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Aspects of earlier work focused on narratives involving the ‘seeking of self through the acquisition of stuff, consumer culture and target marketing. Those obsessions have led to over-consumption becoming a major causation of the climate crisis that today is clogging up landfills and oceans with trash. All is connected as is the past and future. Work in this vein actively continues, as we witness first hand the consequences of human addiction to wanting more in an environmentally fragile and anxious world, driven by human greed.
