From the Catalog: Tabula Rasa, Sculpture 2003-2007

This series is an engagement with landscape, and owes a historical debt to the Scholar Stones of the classical Chinese literati, and to the combed gravel and momentous stones of Japanese Zen gardens.

In the domain of the diminutive my miniature mountains are meant to evoke the American landscape, which has its own distinctive features, especially the dramatic geology of the West. I owe a further debt to all those hikers who pile stones to mark a path or trail. I like to think of my Trail Markers as symbolic stations on a journey somewhere through the imagination. The markers can range from serene to challenging.

As for myself, this series goes back to a childhood visit to the Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs. I especially recall the famous giant balanced rock, at once defiant of the natural order, yet at the same time settling for its own presumptuous harmony. Much like my life. Some of the Trail Markers may also suggest anthropomorphic or zoomorphic shapes, just as the silhouette of Camelback Mountain in Arizona suggests a ship of the desert.

It’s all there for you to spot and identify.

	Ponderosa, 2004 bronze		Red Wing, 2003 bronze
	Tucumcari, 2003 bronze		Mendota, 2003 bronze
	Sky City, 2004 bronze		Capistrano, 2003 bronze