I have always been creative. Carving wood, writing poetry, tinkering, and building things,  often totally useless things, I have tried to share my perception of the world in both its beauty and tragedy. It has been my belief that  beauty and tragedy as we each experience it, is our pure truth, and it is the job of the artist to capture the essence of those experiences and use them to nudge us towards celebration or discomfort.  I, as with most sculptors I suppose, “live in my head” spending hours, and sometimes days communicating with no one but my stones.  I see images in my stones seen by no one but me. Those images are drawn from the continuum of beauty and tragedy I have seen and experienced throughout my life. When working, I am often drawn back to the sights, sounds and smells at ground level of a free range kid growing up in New York City. I  think of the people I’ve known in churches and bars, truck stops and loading docks, kitchens and prisons.  I think about the military where I learned racism at a level I had not known, and the Dominican nuns who helped me overcome my dyslexia to earn my bachelors degree.  I think, however, my strongest motivation has always been my experiences with the incarcerated boys and girls I have worked with over the years, and their connection with the contemporary stories of  black men, women and children who continue to be murdered every day. It is all this and so much more that visits me at my work bench when I try to create beauty to somehow express my pain. Our world is a beautiful and dangerous place where bad things happen to good people. Regular people. People who have no way to shield themselves from whatever is just around the corner. I feel compelled to use my work to remind those of us who are able to shield ourselves, that the rest of us are still here and may need a helping hand. If my work gives pause, if it makes you feel uncomfortable, vulnerable, or even a little afraid, then the stories are well told. Visit those feelings and move to join a healing conversation wherever you can find one, and remember, the stones are always watching.