"Nature tells every secret once." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Seeking nature's secrets through the art of woodturning is the focus of my work. Each piece of wood that I work with contains many secrets. The secret that I choose to reveal expresses itself through the form, texture, grain pattern, and color discovered in the wood.

I am a self-taught woodturning artist. My education is in biology and ecology with a career in forest ecology and management in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.

The blending of woodturned art and forest ecology is one of my goals as an artist. I generally use only native Ozark Mountain trees that I find after they are no longer living. In using dead trees as my raw material, much of my work becomes a collaborative effort between myself and nature. Wood that is sometimes weather-cracked or enhanced by insects and fungal colonies is common in my work. The incorporation of these natural ecological processes in my work is integral to my artistic philosophy.