ORIGINS | Cathouse Gallery

I am regularly asked "How did you get started doing wire sculptures?"

I have a background in tv and theatre stage work. A regular go-to for set decorating is papier mache for boulders and various set items. In the late 1980s, I started developing those techniques to encompass my interest in the depictions of the human figure. I've done fairly regular life drawing classes since my teens and enjoy creating the nuances of the lines and curves of the figure. My drawings are the foundations of my sculptures. I would make a wire base, cover it with paper, and then fabric, paint, plaster... whatever seemed to work, but I was eventually drawn to the wonderfully ethereal sense of motion of the 'naked' wire. At one point I had 14 full-sized figures in my rather smallish house. The internet didn't exist and I wasn't able to market these pieces, so... I stopped in the early 1990s.

In 2015 I opened my cat kennel, the Comfy Cat. I was only permitted a fairly small sign on the highway, however, no one seemed to mind a giant cat on the roof. This led to me getting back into creating wire structures, teaching workshops, and selling locally. In the fall of 2020, I made my first international sale to Texas with 'Big Buffy' through my website presence. I've since sold to many places in the States, Canada, Britain, and Europe. The internet is a game changer for home-based artists.

These are a few of my earlier pieces

circa 1988-1993 Click to expand