Growing up as a kid in Washington Heights, there wasn’t much extra money for toys. But we did have pipe cleaners with which to free our imaginations and explore and play like kids should play — with total unscripted abandon, free from the confines of predetermined toys. I used to skip school and spend days at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Modern Art and the Guggenheim museums. The influence of Tanguy, Ducahamp, Picasso, Calder, Kandinski, Nevelson, Bontecue, and many others, is apparent in my work. After spending 30 years as a technical writer/illustrator, and raising five children, I am free to create on a full time basis.

The collage/mixed media all begins with a series of organic drawings (the component parts), which are then assembled into an overall superstructure on a substrate. Technical illustrations/photos from technical journals, are added as necessary. It’s an industrial process that relies on serendipity, and my aesthetics.  The observer puzzles over the resultant images that combine organic and inorganic forms. Which is why I call it “Industrial Surrealism”. Do these images depict a kind of machine, or an alien landscape? In either case, the work invokes a thoughtful response.

The wire-based sculptures, an outgrowth of childhood pipe cleaners, is simply drawing in three dimensions and/or using the wire to interconnect various found objects into a coherent whole. I also incorporate screws, nuts and bolts as required to stabilize the structure. Some pieces also have internal lighting incorporated within*.

* Note: Not UL approved.