Stick Stories are sticks, ladders and wall assemblages created mainly from the detritus that I search for in my natural environment. I commonly use driftwood to weave my constructions together visually and literally. The bleached branches and fist-shaped knots are so intrinsically beautiful, it seems disrespectful to add marks or color, but I must do it. Although each of the works is individual, they share a common language of birds, fish, ocean, land, and sky. This body of work divides into four categories. “Stick Stories” are poles that can each stand alone or in a group. “Ladders” are the three-dimensional echoes of the flat ladder images that would pop up in my paintings. Each of the “Panel Series” is built on a wood background rescued from the original veneer walls of our house remodel. “Windows” metaphorically frame the surrounding landscape. 
     

     I reside in northern California near the Pacific Ocean where I gather driftwood (where permitted) and ideas for my art. My first ocean experience left its indelible mark on me since my family lived a stone's throw from what was the untamed shoreline of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. When we returned to my Chicago birthplace, Lake Michigan's beaches became important to my life.