About
I was an artist at the age of five, when I started copying the Sunday Comics in my hometown of Holly Springs, North Carolina. I followed my passion for art through school and completed an art degree at East Carolina University. A simple soapstone carving made me fall in love with the ability to shape one of the hardest materials on Earth with my own hands; I knew I would be a sculptor.
While finishing my BFA, I found I could combine my loves for science fiction, fantasy, and Jungian psychology by creating and casting my own imagined fantasy creatures. I took these two techniques, metal casting and stone carving, with me to Estonia for two years, during which I studied ceramics at the Estonia Academy of Art.
After returning to the United States to pursue an MFA at East Carolina, I rekindled my love of iron casting and began a new journey with steel fabrication. Thus my temple-heart-vessels came to life, and I found a way to harmonize the sacred balance between the physical and the spiritual, a philosophical ideal born from studying Tai Chi. I now continue this exploration as an artist at Liberty Arts.
“I love witnessing the spark of pure joy and awe that fills the eyes of those gathered together; spreading an illumination that radiates through the entirety of their being: knowing that they are sharing in a communion of souls. This fire and metal dance, for at least a couple of hours, becomes the healing balm and elixir that I offer to the world.”