I'm inspired by ideas as varied as physics and gargoyles, and I seek to express these ideas through the creation of art that highlights the best aspects of the medium in hand. Thus, In many cases, my work is also an exploration of the medium itself, which often leads me to abstract forms where the nature of the material can be featured. I suspect this media-driven approach will be part of my practice indefinitely since I am always learning new things, even from materials I have worked many times before.

With stone - a material I find highly sensuous when properly polished - I strive to balance the form with the innate features of the medium itself, such as colour, figuring, fissures, mass, and so on. Since each stone comes with a unique combination of traits, I cannot imagine being bored by the process. Metal, in comparison, lets me use its flexibility to create shapes that are impossible in stone, and it comes with an entirely different set of choices around finish and colour, so I have a different balance to strike in the final work. I have visions in which I combine metal and stone - and possibly ceramics or casting - to achieve things I cannot accomplish in a single medium. These await only studio space where such work is possible.

I am most inspired by some of the great masters. Michelangelo's Brutus gives his subject an enigmatic quality that still haunts me years after seeing the piece, and his Prisoners are a master class in stone sculpture all by themselves. For detail and delicacy in stone, nothing I know of compares with Bernini's Daphne and Apollo. More recent artists whose work I admire include Leonardo Nierman and Barbara Hepworth, whose non-representational works explore sculptural form in fascinating ways. I also find great beauty in the work of many First Nations artists. Bill Reid's Raven and the First Men is an excellent example, in all its various incarnations.

In the end, my goal is the creation of the work. While I strive to make the end results attractive in various ways, the process of creation is key, and as such it is my primary motivator.