I live on an Island
I work in an office with a falcon at my feet and the Pacific Ocean at my doorstep.
My artistic career began by fashioning animals from clay on my parent's 28,000 acre ranch in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). As a boy I was fascinated with birds and many times these were the subjects of my modelling.
My first year of high school was at Falcon College near Bulawayo where I was heavily influenced by my English teacher, Peter Steyn, who was already one of Africa's greatest bird photographers.
If it were not for the political turmoil of Rhodesia I would still be there, instead it prompted my family to move to South Africa.
After completing high school at Kearsney College in KwaZulu Natal, I served in the South African Infantry and then continued my studies while obtaining a degree in Biology from the University of Natal. After college I traveled around Europe, lived on a kibbutz in Israel and served as a company commander in the Israeli Tank Corps.
I have also always had a deep appreciation for history, archaeology, and the evolution of our species and how art was part of that evolution. It was on a visit to the Isreal Museum that I first became really mezmerized with the beauty of sculpture. In an exhibit of very ancient art I saw a wheat ear fashioned in pure gold. I could not believe how anyone could produce such perfection in metal.
But it was only after some of the intense of tank battles, that I came to realize the symbiosis of molten metal and the mold. I saw the creations of fire. The fascinating beauty of molten metal taking on the shape of the mold. In this case the ground onto which metal from burning tanks flowed.
It was only many years later before I could formalize the shift, and my sculpting transitioned from its clay beginings to bronze and later, to silver.
After several years working in the computer programming industry, I was finally free to pursue my passions. Art, Africa and falconry.
Today, I watch and enjoy the movement and grace of birds living in the Pacific Northwest while working in my Camano Island studio and office.
As a falconer, I listen to the spirit of my birds when they move to flight and the hunt. And, as an artist, I shares the messages of transition and transformation in nature through my sculpture.
And I am lucky enough to travel back to my spiritual homeland, Africa, quite often.
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