Typical hide and copper over wood figures

"Crow"  hide over wood and nails, 1996,  Collection of Time Warner

"Isis"  copper and hide on wood, 1999, private collection, Japan

"Decollated Stair Stepper" 2005,  Taniguchi Steel Corp., Japan

"Hippolytte" 1996,  Muse du Beaux Arts, D'uny, France

Himiko and her pet Sphynx

Himiko, lifesize, wood, pigment, copper, hide 

and 

Sphynx, wood and bronze

2003 - 2004

Not my best work, not the most ambitious, but perhaps most emblematic.

Mixed media works

Untitled work from 2006 - 2007 

Most of my work, the best stuff, is made from the scraps of the scraps in my studios.   Most good works are made of pieces of pieces, some new,  some decades old, synthesized together.

"Wind", 1991 - 2005, cast iron and copper

 The leg has been in several different 'finished' sculptures in the past.   I think this is the final form.

"Shimada" 2005, bronze 

The head is the sole surviving part of a failed casting of a full seated figure, which sat in the corner of the studio for months if not years.

Pool

Pool, 38" high, hide over wood, with fiberglass and steel.    I love to paint.   It is odd how we grow:  I draw and make etchings almost daily, but these are always figurative, from life, with considerable realism.   I paint weekly, but these are always abstract, painterly, and formal, nearly content free.   I make furniture and architecture, always well crafted, and make sculpture which is defiantly never well crafted. Don't ask me why this is so.   It has puzzled me for many years.

Walnut and Nails, a southern tradition

I have made a figure at least once a year for nearly 40 years.  I do it whether I need the practice or not.  in 2008 - 2009 I carved this from walnut.  In the south folks drive many nails into walnut trees, saying it makes them bear better.  I carved this, and as my wife wanted another child, thought I'd best put the nails back in, you know, just to be on the safe side.  No, there was nothing sadistic or painful about it... it is just how they do things around here, with it being walnut and all....

Yukiko Iichanko

Yukiko in cast iron, lifesize, with Japanese lacquers and rust.   I like Buddhist sculpture very much, but they are always male, or neuter.  I make mine as women, which seems fair enough to me.    I have made quite a few in bronze and wood, often using Yukiko as a model.  This is the only one in cast iron.   She is so delicate and refined; the contrast with the material - rough and rusted iron - is interesting to me.

"Oshiri Hibachi" & "Sectional Buddha"

I cast bronze and iron every year or two or three, when I have gathered enough stuff and time to pull off a big pour, always a seriously home grown affair, furnaces made from drum cans and clay, fired with kerosene, and so on - I get real down home about it.    These are castings from my wife Yukiko, as is the iron figure above.   For me the alchemy of taking old bath tubs, piles of scrap copper, clay, coke, vacuum cleaners, etc., and converting it all into sculpture is a truly magical experience, magical save that it is such HARD work!

Three Sisters

These three 'table top" figures were made along with several others in 2005 - 2007.   Indeed, a dozen or so variants exist, and I will make yet more.  They are of wood, with lacquers, metals and hide coverings. I usually do not make more than one or two of an image, as I like to keep my work fresh for myself, but I enjoy these as a theme and format.

"Lips"

bronze lips on steel, 16" x 16" x 4", about 2005

The Chinese character for mouth is a square: lips are over a mouth, a visual echo, which is clever, but I thought of that years after I made it.   Most of my work just happens, born of controlled chaos from scraps in my studio, no method, no guru.

Another Africa, 2010 or so........ebony, goatskins and nails