Based on a plaster carving I have done.

An ornamental plaster design and installation. Developed at Studio Kehai and Hunt Studios. studio.kehai@gmail.com www.huntstonecarving.com

These are photos of a drawing I have been lugging around for quite some time. It is an exquisite corpse that I have been creating with myself. I am demonstrating a bent nouveau approach that lends itself to an endless variation that I find very therapeutic to draw.

The homeowner is a lover of Nouveau. I did some renderings of Hector Guimard's work to create a marble surround. The cast iron internal surround is an original Guimard piece. The client had provided a sketch that ultimately decided what the mantelpiece would look like. Jason Carter and Ilaman Sabirov from Hunt Studios worked out the final leg designs in the plaster model. I loved the work so much I even rendered a version of my own styling. The mantel has a Brugmansia flower opening ... perfect for the bedroom. The fireplace was carved at Hunt Studios.

Developed at Hunt Studios. www.huntstonecarving.com

Pencil, Illustrator, Time. The ornamental carving was executed by Jason Carter at Hunt Studios SF. Material is Brač limestone. www.huntstonecarving.com

Work in progress.

Work in progress. Ink on vellum, print separations.
When I first moved to the east bay I couldn't have demonstrated worse timing. No matter how stout your skills are, and no matter how broad your knowledge, looking for work when the unemployment rate hits an all-time low you are going to have a rough go at it. I took up work in manual labor after working as a graphic designer for nearly ten years. I started by doing clean outs of overgrown gardens and digging irrigation trenches. I come from hardy midwestern farming stock, so my bones are no stranger to painful labor. But this is where a crossover happened...in my spare time I still practiced drawing my own way, developing my own themes based on my own experience. Soon I started installing natural stone patios and retention walls. I fell in love with STONE. Something was pulling me heavily in that direction and I really begun to think about ways to fill my life with more of this work. This image was a prayer; that in 2010 I would break the surface and find the new chapter waiting for me. And it worked. I called it "Delver" in commemoration of the ancient quarrymen who could see the paths right through stone, break them and extract them from the earth. I broke through the last standing wall of my childhood because in the dirt, exhausted and bleeding, I discovered a determination and focus that would have otherwise escaped me. This image is also dedicated to my grandparents, midwestern farmers that endured an extremely difficult life of labor at the hands of capitalism and monoculture that destroyed the land given to their ancestors both before and after the civil war...as my beloved grandmother was a descendent of the proud Lakota. We are Americans that have been made to feel like wandering dogs in this country because we were not blessed with money. But it has always been obvious to me that we have more class. I intend to model this piece in plastilina and perhaps someday point the model into stone: it's rightful place.

Jewelry design