This began with fingernails making marks in refractory bricks from an old kiln. A fascination with how soft yet so strong this material is. That quickly moved into making marks with old nails, hacksaw blades, and the Dremel. Marks turning into symbols, symbols coming together making stories, stories from patterns around me spurring thoughts and emotions coming through me, now frozen forever in these bricks. 

Once glazed, the firing in the kiln bonded them together, forming a three-dimensional sculpture. Eventually, when I ran out of old bricks, the work transitioned into my first love, clay, and these bricks started to climb the walls. I knew these stories in patterns had to continue. 

I was truly amazed by the stark transformation brought by last year’s hurricane at salt Creek in the Amagosa River basin. Once a vibrant wetland in the heart of the Mojave, it was teaming with life, with cat tails and old growth Tamarisk creating a lush, thriving ecosystem.

On my last visit, the scene was surreal. The Arroyo that tore through the area had removed everything, leaving behind a winding silver snake of a stream through the pristine desert sand. The space, now bear, offers a blank canvas for life to begin a new.

Life life from an empty center, the cycle of destruction and rebirth starkly evident. The flow of growth now following the water. There is no greater force than I can imagine in the power of water raging through the desert, reaping and renewing the land in its wake.

This topo map abstraction looks at the flow of water, from a stream that swells into an Arroyo

Dimensions: 39.5” x 27” x 1.25”

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