Folded Figures

Nature and experience inspire some of my sculptures, materials suggest the creation of others. My series of Folded Figures call upon a mixture of the two sources of inspiration. One day in my studio, I caught a glimpse of a beautiful, nearly abstract-looking, sculpture out of the corner of my eye. I didn't remember making anything like it and went to where it lay on the floor. When I focused on it, I saw that it was a piece of discarded and twisted paper. I wondered if I could intentionally make a permanent sculpture appear so unintentional.

Sometime later, while working on another project, I discovered that if I ran wax through presses at very high pressure, I changed its properties. The pressure elongates the molecules of wax yielding sheets with an unusually high degree of flexibility and low elasticity.

I noticed I could manipulate these sheets without cracking them and that the folds I made didn't spring back. As I began to play with the new material, I discovered I had something that would yield an approximation of the scrap I'd seen on the floor.

I like to make my Folded Figures in summer when I let the sun warm the wax to the proper flexibility. I enjoy the fame of trying to get the maximum sense of human presence, with the minimum use of manipulative force. I start with a clear mind and try to have no objective other than to let the wax record my feeling.

Most of my sculpture contains very rich textural surfaces, but my Folded Fugues concentrate on the continuous flow of smooth surfaces. With Folded Figures, my aim is to create a finished sculpture that appears to have been made almost unintentionally, as though it were a twisted scrap of waste suggestive of human form.