“I’m intrigued about what makes something magical. In my practice of both functional design and “pure” art, as well as in my writing and workshops, I’ve managed to identify and use many aspects of this elusive topic. Whether I’m creating a bead wall hanging or an actual sculpted wall, I’m intuitively drawn to the same motifs and inspired by the same sources.

“I live in a pantheistic, pan-cultural, animistic world in which all things express deeper underlying meaning and are not simply what they seem. Places I’ve lived—Spain, Morocco, Turkey, England, Venezuela, the Texas Hill Country—have profoundly influenced me (some at a preverbal level), their cultural biases intermingling freely in my art and in my life. People from many different cultures resonate with my work.

“Nature—its processes and forms, provides more springboards: textures, color gradations, layered panoramas, smoke forms, waterways, colorful animals and their surface patterns (tropical fish, birds, and butterflies are favorites), stone, stalactites, flowers, bones, and of course, the human body.

“Artists such as Klimt, Gaudí, Hunnertwasser, Andy Goldsworthy, Erte´, Disney, Bruce Goff, Remedios Varo,Niki de St. Phalle, Fellini, Debussy, Laura Nyro, Carl Jung, Dr. Seuss, Dale Chihuly, Grau-Garriga, Albert Paley, and E. M. Forster, all exhibit for me magical dimensions in their work, providing further inspiration.

“I use a variety of mutually supporting techniques to impact the viewer or user: the cumulative layering of elements that requires one to shift one’s viewpoint and “fill in” to complete the image; the favoring of additive, incremental media (beads, mosaics, colored mirror, stone, stained glass); pointillistic color blending; the relations and interplay of metallic, flat opaque, shimmering, and translucent colors; hints of exotic times and places; the employment of humor and playfulness; the use of biomorphic forms and sensual curves; the application of rich textures and aggressive color mixes; the sculpting of stratified spaces; the planning of unexpected discoveries and juxtapositions; and the incorporation of archetypal images. The end result, for old and young alike, is an accessibility, an opulence, and a high level of engagement that has both an immediate and a time-release effect.

“This discovery over time is paramount. I am challenged to keep each sculpture and each installation open-ended, ever changing, and rich. I succeed as an artist to the degree that the viewer/user is wonder-struck, transported to other realms, or comes to understand that something more is going on—more dimensions, more uses, more delight—than first meets the senses”