STONE

Stone is an unforgiving mistress. A cold, hard, elemental beauty, such stuff as worlds are made of ... the stuff of the Earth. The entire drama of human life in all its heroic folly is played out on a stage of stone. And when the final curtain falls, when actor and audience depart, stone is all that remains.

Hope granite, 7' high, Ki'mchon, Korea. Located in the K'imchon Sculpture Park, next to a children's hospital.

Peace Table granite, 14' high. Located at the United Nations Korean War Memorial Park in Pusan, Korea. In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Korean War. One artist from each of the 22 countries involved in the conflict was invited to make a work to commemorate the war. The North Koreans and Chinese were not invited ... pity.

Islands in the Stream marble, 6' high, Carrara, Italy. A map of the heavens. Title from Hemingway.

Precambrian Memory steel and stone, 8’ high. The last in a series of landscapes that started in the 80s.

Jurassic Forest Steel and river pebbles, 9’ high

The Pleiades stone and steel, 10’ high

The Forgotten Country Japanese granite, 7’ (2 m ) long, Sozo No Mori Sculpture Park, Fujimi, Japan

Sei Carrara marble, 7' long. Fukuhara Gakuen University, Kitakyushu, Japan. Sei is a japanese word meaning birth, life, nature or manufactured product.

Twilight mudstone 30” long

Cataloochee steel and river pebbles, 8’ high. Named from the creek where the pebbles were gathered on slopes of the eastern Smokies.

Cherokee painted steel and stone, 9' high. Homage to the Cherokee people. Stones gathered from creeks in Smoky Mountains. Design based on motifs from traditional Cherokee gourd art.

Mesozoic Bench 6’ long x 9’ high

Translunar Paradise

Genesis granite and painted steel, 7' high. A metaphor for cosmic creation.

WOOD

The air exhaled by the sculptor walking in the forest sustains the tree he will later carve. And the wood carved by the sculptor came from the tree that once gave him oxygen. We are part of the same system, trees and people, connected by shared air.

Ocean Murmurs 7' high Japanese cedar and camphor wood

Sea Child camphor wood, 6' high. Based on an argonaut shell brought to my feet by wind and waves during a typhoon on a beach in western Japan.

The Architect’s Dream camphor wood, 4’ long by 4’ wide by 40” high (without base). Someday I will do a larger version in bronze …

Growth walnut 40" high

Luna sweet gum and tulip poplar

Venus Camphor wood

Urban Man camphor wood, 5’ 6” high

Mythological Landscape camphor wood, 30" long (76 cm)

Fairy Ring Japanese cedar and wood chips. About 20" in diameter (6 m). Kyushu Prefecture Art Museum. The wood chips came from the carving process. I saved these logs from the construction company that cut down an entire forest and subsequently ground the forest into pulp.

The Sea's Birthday wood and beach pebbles, 7' (2 m) long. Title from a poem my wife wrote as a child.

Landscape in Wood 3’ (1 m ) long

The Sound of Waves wood and beach pebbles, 22" long. Purchased by the Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis.

Born laminated beech, 8’ high, Eskisehir, Turkey

Table with Stone Japanese pine and beach pebbles, about 6’ long

Citified red oak, 3’ high. Windfall from Hurricane Fran.

METAL

Each material has its own unique set of associations, a fact not often acknowledged by Modernism's focus on form and the Postmodern emphasis on content. Steel and bronze are industrial products, with longstanding associations with machines, war and masculinity (think engines, bullets, Samurai swords). The sculptor can choose to evoke these associations or use them ironically, but cannot ignore them.

Steampunk Babylon steel and bronze, 10' high

Babel steel, 8' high. Figures within the city can be seen prostrating themselves in prayer before a giant cell phone... Do cities grow organically from nature like a tree or are cities built on the dead stumps of a ruined nature?

Tree of Good and Evil painted steel, 10' high. A Biblical metaphor for our relationship with technology.

Under a Starry Sky bronze, 10' diameter Fine Arts College, Shanghai. One night on planet Earth.

Driving to the Western Paradise bronze, 7' (2 m without base). Changshou Park, Shanghai. A sardonic commentary on the Chinese mad rush to emulate western-style capitalism. The Chinese government, not pleased with the sculpture's message, changed the title (after I'd left the country) to something less politically charged. China's elite are eager to imitate the West's lust for profit but not its democratic ideals nor its freedom of expression.

Amrita Devi steel and bronze, 10’ high. In 18th century Rajasthan Amrita Devi and her daughters sacrificed themselves to save a sacred forest from the king’s wood cutters. Their sacrifice inspired India’s 20th century Chipko Movement which in turn influenced the tree huggers in the West.

Enigma steel and bronze 9’ high, Chicago

The Geometer's Gate painted steel, 10' high (3.1 m) An homage to those creative minds from Euclid to Einstein who reshaped our understanding of time and space ...

Nova painted steel, 8’ high

Caprice painted steel, 11’ high

The Forest at Night painted steel, 11' high

Motor City steel and bronze, 10’ high

Garden of Night steel on wood, 6' high

Urban Man II steel and bronze, 7’ high,

Stranger in a Strange Land steel and bronze, 7' high. A future Moses wandering a wasted ecosystem where technology has run amok. Another figure can be seen inside the sculpture, arms raised in supplication toward the heavens .....

Night steel and bronze, 9' high. A chronicle of the Sixth Extinction from about 40,000 years ago to the present. Species already extinct (including mammoths, moas, dodos, Tasmanian tigers, etc.) are on the left side. Currently endangered animals (monarchs, elephants, cheetahs, etc.) are on the right. On top are the baiji dolphins of China, the most recent large mammal to be extinguished by humans (2007). Biologists predict 50% of all species alive in the 20th century will be extinct or critically endangered by the end of this century ...

Wheel of Life bronze and painted steel, 8' high (2.5 m). The evolution of technology into increasingly more destructive expressions. Civilization is destroyed. A new civilization rises from the ashes. The karmic cycle continues.

Brave New Worlds Steel and cast bronze and aluminum, 10' high. The biosphere transformed into the technosphere. "O brave new world, that has such creatures in it!"

Ark painted steel, 8' high. This work can be interpreted in one of two ways: As a metaphor for our role as the stewards, the captains (the "Noahs") of Ark Earth. The work can also be seen in a darker light: a preview of a future when either because of war or environmental devastation, we are compelled to build a space ark and colonize other worlds, carrying with us those plants and animals necessary for our survival.

St. Elmo powder coated steel, 15' high, Chattanooga, TN, 2014. A history of Chattanooga from Pre-Columbian times through the Trail of Tears, the rise of slavery, the Civil War and to the present. The figures are gas welded steel (no bronze).

Plato's Playground painted steel, 10' high

The Watchtower steel and bronze

High Rise 9' high (2.7 m) steel and bronze. The city defined: 1. a cultural hub of near constant sensory stimulation, intellectual exchange and movement 2. The soaring towers that indicate the presence of civilization 3. The domicile of Homo urbanus 4. The source of our spiritual and psychological disconnect from nature 5. A cancerous growth on the face of the Earth...

CERAMICS

Clay is magic... alive... primeval. Limited only by gravity (and the
artist's imagination), in skilled hands it becomes an embryonic fluid that gives birth to form, transforming mud into masterpiece. Is it any wonder that ceramicists are invariably mystics?

Traditionally, clay has been the preferred material for sketching ideas in three dimensions and an intermediary stage for casting. But alas, ceramic sculpture is inherently fragile and thus, not well suited for public art. Ceramic pieces, in my experience, all too often become pieces of ceramics.

Babylon 7' high terracotta. Terracotta Sculpture Park for Andalou University, Eskisehir, Turkey.

Nagasaki unglazed stoneware, 16" high. Portrait of the artist's wife whose family was in Nagasaki before, during and after the bombing. Was it necessary to end a war by killing tens of thousands of woman and children? What does that make the victors?

Urban Man 40” high

The Sons of Martha stoneware 5' 6" high. Destroyed by Hurricane Fran in 1996.

Maid in Babylon painted clay 2' high.

Technozoic Lizard 40" long

Lizard Car 16" long

Tower an old work I will revisit one day …

Tower of the Sun stoneware on steel

Vessels For 3 years I studied throwing pots at Takatori Kiln in Fukuoka, Japan … until ultimately realizing that I was not destined to be a potter. The tedium of making the same form ad nauseam was not for me …

PAINTINGS

From ancient Greece to modern times thinkers have wasted a lot of verbiage debating the relative merits of painting versus sculpture. Both have advantages and both have disadvantages. But they are as different as poetry and music and are therefore, hard to compare. For me, painting is a way to relax, an escape from the blood, sweat and toil of working stone and steel.

Yama oil on canvas, 25"x 35"

High Tide oil on canvas 3’x 4’

Hunting Island Marsh oil on canvas 32”x48”

The Light in the Forest oil on canvas 22" x 26"

Carolina, 1491 oil on canvas, 21” x 26”. The Outer Banks before the arrival of the Europeans and the subsequent extinction of the Carolina parakeet.

Sphinx oil on canvas 4' x 4' (unfinished)

Trees and Monkeys oil on canvas, 5' long. A view of the forest of Yakushima, Japan, one of most beautiful and largely pristine landscapes left in Japan.

Voyage oil on canvas 4'x5', A visual metaphor for the artist's journey.

Hide and Seek oil on canvas, 2'x 3'

PRINTS and DRAWINGS

Drawing is the most ancient of the arts. Most of the so-called Paleolithic cave paintings are in fact charcoal drawings. One can imagine some Stone Age Adam or Eve scratching lines in the dirt with a finger and pondering the meaning of the marks. More than any other medium, save perhaps clay, drawing offers an immediate and direct connection between mind, hand and artwork. It's an activity we've all been doing since childhood. In that sense, we are all artists.

By contrast, printmaking is a more indirect process. One must construct in metal or wood or some other suitable material, a plate or template for making multiple copies. Over time, I've become less interested in complex chemical processes such as etching, in favor of the simplicity of woodcuts and drypoint.

My Life as a Tree pencil 5” x 16”

Citified mixed media 18" x 30"

Moon Garden color pencil and pastel 18" x 24"

Khmer Girl pastel pencil

Motor City Shrine color pencil and pastel 18" x 24"

Genesis etching

Solitude mezzotint 7” x 7.5”

Eve woodcut 15” x 18”

Emergence woodcut 15" x 18"

Tower of Babel color pencil 16” x 20”

Yesterday’s Children intaglio 7” x 10”

BOOKS

Escaping Nature How to Survive Global Climate Change (Duke Press, 2024)

Lessons from the Sand (UNC Press, 2016) A beach science activity book for families with kids.

The Magic Dolphin (Ingram, 2018) A Young Human's Guide to Beaches, Sea Level Rise, and Living with the Sea

Escaping Nature How to Survive Global Climate Change (Duke Press, 2024) While we wait for the nations of the world to take climate change seriously we must devise strategies for surviving heat waves, wildfires, rising seas, droughts, floods, powerful storms, food shortages, and a host of other evils unleashed from Pandora's box of industrial capitalism.

Escaping Nature The mid-latitudes between 45 degrees north and 45 degrees south of the equator are expected to become unlivable in the coming decades. People living there will have to move north (or to higher elevations) because the humidity and temperature combinations, what are known as wet-bulb temperatures, will become too intense for the human body to survive. Hundreds of millions (possibly billions) of climate refugees will flee to the US, Canada, and Northern Europe. Plants and animals will also try to move north or upslope to escape the deadly heat.

Escaping Nature Everywhere on planet Earth animals are moving north an average of about a mile each year to escape the heat. By 2100 the Burmese python, now constrained to the everglades by occasional freezes in north Florida, will likely migrate as far north as the Carolinas.

Escaping Nature Sea level rise will inundate most of the world's coastal cities in the coming decades. The construction of floating cities (and floating houses) is one way to deal with sea level rise. As long as there is sufficient protection against ocean waves, a floating city can safely rise with the rising sea.

Escaping Nature As the world's mountain glaciers and snow caps continue to melt with warming temperatures, farmers suffer from a severe loss of meltwater needed for irrigation. One solution is to create an artificial glacier like this "ice stupa" in northwest India. As temperatures rise in the spring meltwater flows downslope to water crops and provide drinking water for local villages.

Escaping Nature Biospheric Justice (the rights of Nature)

Our legal framework can be seen as ever-widening circles of ethical concerns that eventually must expand to embrace the rights of Nature. Driven by compassion, moral outrage, and other factors, we will be compelled by biodiversity loss to move toward a more biocentric world view. Humanity's physical survival depends on such a move.

Lessons from the Sand Family-Friendly Science Activities You Can Do on a Carolina Beach (UNC Press, 2016) A beach science activity book for kids and their parents. Topics include the mineralogy of sand, beach ecology, fossil shark's teeth, shell identification, maritime forests, shorebird's feeding strategies, beach erosion, how to calculate wave height and current speed, and so on. This is the book for kids interested in marine science.

Lessons from the Sand Activity 30

(published 2018) Available on Amazon.com.

The Magic Dolphin

It was a perfect morning for beachcombing. Except for a lone surfer, the beach was deserted. The storm had dragged from the deep all sorts of marvelous creatures — squishy jellyfish, red and purple sea fans and creepy horseshoe crabs that crawled through the sand like spiky-tailed dinosaurs.

The Magic Dolphin

There must have been hundreds of giant blue butterflies gathered on that tree. Hundreds more, perhaps thousands, fluttered around the clearing like winged sapphires.

The Magic Dolphin

It was a beached whale, partly buried in the sand, bloated and stinking with decay. And around its sides and on top were dark shapes moving in the mist. To my horror the shapes resolved themselves into lions. Lions feeding on a whale. This can’t be real!

I heard Maria running up behind me. “Go back to the ship, now!" she screamed. "Run!"

The Magic Dolphin

We slipped across a dark sea as smooth as polished slate, leaving a wake that bubbled and glowed in the light of a full moon. Stars were everywhere, sparkling like 4th of July fireworks in the sky above and reflecting in the sea around us. We were on a spaceship blasting through a watery galaxy, or so it seemed to my excited imagination.

The Magic Dolphin

A turtle with jagged ridges running down a barnacle-crowned back like some kind of prehistoric sea monster. Every so often a massive flipper paddled the water, sending out concentric rings of ripples. But its head could not be seen, for it was enveloped in plastic.

“Poor animal!” exclaimed Maria. “It’s tangled in a plastic bag. I’m going to pull that bag off.”

DREAMS

The mind's playground. The wellspring of art and science. Temporary flight from the burdens of existence ... and now and then a fleeting glimpse of ineffable wonder.