Spiritus Naturalis

The interplay of stillness and movement is at the core of my love of sculpting. I'm drawn like a moth to light to the intricate work of creating still objects radiating aliveness and joy in being.

You make their sinuous motion by experiencing them. I think of these nature spirits as organic engines of delight, invitations to feel motion like a pendulum, arcing between stillness and life.

This series blends landscapes and numerous plant, animal and insect forms. These nature spirits are inspired by the sensual forms of the madrona trees here on Orcas Island.

These are recent works, some of which are available. Inquiries can be made here.

Tidepool Cabana

A seaside cottage overlooks a tidepool realm. Watery blues splash on its bulbous crustacean form. Tendrils undulate with seaweed greens or ripple like cool, windy sky.

36" high

Crescent Storm Wraith

A bolt of lightning punctuates a cooler, softer palette of stormy blues, greys and purples. Numerous thorns pulse with the release of energy.

37" high

River Wisp

This being stands at the headwaters, casting waves of wind and water across the land.

Cool, watery elements flow through vegetative greens and warm earth hues. A symphony of undulations evoke the motions of currents, waves and eddies.

28" high

Seaside Lunaraffe

This tall, thorny creature strolls the shore with cool waves washing through its earthy legs. Jungle greens emerge from beachy warmth, turning to sky blues and sunny yellows, and finally dusky blues and purples give way to a crescent moon.

58.5" high

Flaming Seedcaster

There are seeds that germinate only after the intense heat of a wildfire. Flaming Seedcaster embodies the energy of a whirling inferno releasing new life. Flames rise out of earthy tones, contrasted with seed-tipped tendrils in greens and cyans.

40" high

Fiddlehead Sough Usher

Stop in the woods on a windy day, become still inside, and the sough—the rushing sound of wind blowing through trees—becomes a chaotic symphony. This nature spirit guides the sough, makes music of it whether or not anyone is there to listen.

The paper skin of the trunk has earthier coloration, while the branches flowing down and away have a feeling of wind and sky. The tendrils—the sound element—each have a unique, punctuated and rhythmic color stream.

5' high x 3' wide

Tailwind Medusa

Tailwind Medusa seems blown from behind across a dry landscape. Desert colors are reflected on its legs and torso, while its upper reaches inhabit sky with cyans and teals, cloudy whites and dashes of sunny yellows.

The pulsing tendrils are brightly warm with flecks of sky.

54" high

Nomad Wavemaker

This darling land spirit plies the currents of winds and waters, shaping waves of destruction and delight, releasing them in its colorful stride.

44" high

Thunderhead Proboscelope

With its prominent proboscis, antlers, summery array of colors, stormy upper reaches and a bolt of energy trailing earthward, it could only be a quite rare Thunderhead Proboscelope.

47” high

Spadeneck Garden Sylph

A silver-skirted being tends the garden, spade-tipped tendril and seeds at the ready, its upper form curving through sky and earthward like a skeletal flower. A dazzling, intricate play of colors like a garden in full bloom.

45" high

Shoulder Season:
Vernal Embrace

Here in the Pacific Northwest, winter melds with spring, provides months of betweenness we call shoulder season.

In this piece, the embracing seasons are rooted in muted earth. Winter's cool blues, stormy white-speckled blacks, and cloudy black- and blue-speckled whites greet Spring's vibrant floral array.

Each has a tendril extending its own coloration, blending with the other season as they intermingle. Winter's cold is warmed as it meets spring. Spring's warm inclination cools as it blends with Winter's chill.

24" high x 29" wide

Intertidal Wisp

I love the childlike wonder of looking up at forms soaring aloft. Sometimes they’re sky beings, but this hanging piece courses above as if in a watery, intertidal zone.

Its colors reflect vibrant sea life, strands of kelp and cool currents streaming by.

43” long x 20” high

Tidepool Waven

A crustaceous form with the dazzling color array of intertidal creatures at large and

cool blues along the serpentine flow of

waves coursing through.

29.5" high x 38" wide

Leafipedes

When I go deeply enough into a series, it often ends up spawning sub-series. And so it is that the Leafipedes have formed a family of their own within the Spiritus Naturalis series. These have in common a leaf-shaped landscape held aloft on numerous legs.

Seaside Walkabout
Leafipede

The cedar floating leaf top with its cool, speckled fiber surface suggests shallow water lapping up on a shore. The underside is a warmer sand tone, like a beach below the tide.

The madrona branch legs with their bulbous tops remind me of bull whip kelp. The bands of color shift cooler, as if they’re descending into the depths. A brass mesh veil hangs below, like a keel sailing through kelp.

60" long, 36" high.

Summer Storm Leafelope

Ok, not exactly a Leafipede, but with its stance and antler, a Leafelope it is!

Earthy tones at its feet shift into greens and warm summer colors, and upward into cooler greeens and blues. The sky plane features collages of eye-shaped clouds. The antler has stormy cloud tones segueing into yellow-speckled bolts of lightning.

50" high x 45" wide

Tide Strider Leafipede

The gently undulating cedar leaf top with its cool, speckled fiber surface suggests water lapping up on a shore. The underside is sand-toned, like a beach below the tide.

It wades through blue-green shallows, with bright coral, fish and seaweed tones on its upper legs. A pair of translucent mesh forms glide between.

57" long x 36" high

Meandering Stream Leafipede

This smaller Leafipede wanders the countryside, its legs morphed into stepping stones across its varied blue surface.

The watery cools percolate down into bright and warm earther tones toward the base.

31" high x 41" wide