By This Means

I have long recognized that my art work is directly affected by my years of working as a carpenter in house construction. Recently I have re-examined this intersection and employed repeated images and shapes from my carpentry work to investigate how the experience of building changed me, my life and my inner view.

At Work

Still Life Hammers

: Ladder Tracks

: By This Means

: Elements of Construction

Ladder Wall

: 3 Ladders

: Ladder

: Scale Model Ladder Shadow Montage

: Ladder

By This Means emerges with an emphasis on the ladder. I have taken the ladder as a potent symbol. I use it to express escape, change, a sense of perspective, scale, rising to a new understanding, a building of structure. It is a tool used to ascend, to move to a new level, to get to a place to build on what has gone before, a tool to come to a new sense of what is, what can be, and how to get there, to make change happen. Jacob’s ladder ascended into heaven. Rachel’s ladders are very much rooted in the earth.

By This Means focuses on the complexity inherent in the relationship between a sign and its meaning. The ladder becomes the vehicle for examining the process of perceiving and the fluidity of meaning. I take the idea of ladder and make not just a ladder, but show a form that can be seen everywhere and suggest disparate concepts and ideas.

This is my personal experience, but it is not unique in that we all make meaning from our lives. We take what we do, what is around us and turn it into an explanation, an understanding of our lives. We create the symbols to express this meaning.