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 I draw inspiration from the well of my experience, which intimately springs from nature in its myriad forms. My childhood, years spent planting trees, working in forestry management, teaching English overseas, and my travels throughout Asia and Africa and elsewhere are some of the meals that I am still digesting, and occasionally regurgitate to chew again and re-swallow. As they say, in the old cliché, “some meals are hard to swallow.” I find that art helps with digestion and provides an objective plate upon which I can break things down and make them more palatable, so I can feast. These meals are the building blocks for my creative juices—‘food for thought.’ You gotta love clichés!
In some ways it seems as though this carving business is a metaphor for my existence, in which I have salvaged my own life out of the rubble when I’ve fallen and broken, accidentally or not. And now, when I reflect upon my life, not yet dead or dying, I see that all the rubble I have rolled over throughout the years, was the grit and grime that polished this stone into what it is—something beautiful. Beautiful in its mystery. Everything in my life so far, good and bad, has been a gift. Apparently, some gifts do not appear to be so at first. And some accidents are not accidents.
Since I began carving, I have endeavoured to do things in an environmentally friendly manner. The majority of materials I use, with few exceptions, are from salvaged or recycled materials, including all my displays. Transforming what many would consider “trash” into something beautiful is what I attempt to do. Bringing out the inherent beauty in the objects I find is easy when I listen and look and feel and “take baby steps” (as one First Nation’s artist told me). I sometimes think, “What a privileged life I have, being able to make beautiful things, the more beautiful the better. Wouldn’t the world be a wonderful place if everyone, in everything they did, strove to make things beautiful?” Many do, but it isn’t always the underlying motive for doing things. My vision is to transfer this virtue into everything: do everything creatively, with integrity, and aspire to beauty.
As for future aspirations, in business, this year I hope to get my workshop off the grid, and switch to wind or solar power, perhaps both. To me, this will complete the eco-friendliness of this business, and will not only make me happier, but mother earth will rest easier as well. More generally, in my life, I plan to open up all the closed doors and see what lies behind them. Writing is something that is currently taking stage.
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