Statement
I am a right leg amputee, next year it will be forty years since the lost of my leg in a car accident in college. I spent seven months at that time in the hospital recuperating from the various physical losses and travails. Loosing the leg at such a young age has had a profound and at times positive effect upon my goals and positions in life. Certainly there are many boundaries one must traverse to succeed in life. Being handicap in a way is just one more thing to wreak havoc upon you. Travel becomes a series of successes and failures, and aging is not for the weak. Since one is in a continuous state of creation, by having a career in the arts my body has at times become subject matter. In addition to working as an artist, I've taught at the University level for twenty-five years.
At the same time those boundaries or obstacles become goals, attitudes and opportunities, that you don't recognize until you conquer them. Some of my art has reflected this awareness at times. There have been mechanical moments or movements that make my body the obstacle, I struggle to do certain tasks even from a wheelchair at times, however, and that has lead toward a painterly or a more considered resolution in the way one handles the paint or painting.
Over the years my artificial and real leg have been the subject in my art as image and impetus. I've painted myself nude wearing only my artificial limb. Or I've constructed objects as a reflection of the prothesis I wore. Some more recent work the image of the leg manifests itself as symbol, of what I'm not always sure. In some ways its existence is just another naming of an event of modern life. Recently I've used a wheelchair to get around in the studio and that too has made its way into the subject matter of my work.
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