Animals don’t care how you look or what you wear. They simply judge you by your character and they have been an inspiration for my creations ever since I was a child.

I was bullied due to my red hair, freckles and general oddness. So, growing up I didn`t have many friends. Luckily, I had understanding parents who allowed me to have a lot of pets. I found comfort and a sense of belonging with the animals.

I have been driven by creative energy throughout my life.

Before starting with sculptures, I was a builder. Or rather a transformer of worn out and ugly interior or buildings into a more innovative and pleasing design. What started out as a mere economic purpose, soon became a quest for filling the space around me with more life and color in inspiring and original ways.

In the course of life, we all go through ups and downs, periods of grief and traumas. Life happens to all of us. And it did so to me as well. Several coinciding incidents and events of great inner impact led to a downward spiral and a near collapse. There was simply too much grief to comprehend.

I understood that my urge to continuously take on immense projects was in a deep sense a flight from these sorrows. Thus, I began focusing my energy on trying to create beauty out of the rubble in a more focused form. I started to make sculptures. And of course, the sculptures needed to be animals. My way of paying tribute to the animals.

I took what I knew and what I had from building; chicken wire, cement, clay, plaster and one-component foam to make the sculptures. I used broken jewelry handed down from friends and family, beads, broken glass and mirrors, and various knick-knacks mostly found in thrift stores, to make a mosaic surface on my sculptures. A form of recycling, you might say.

Being overly active, restless and impatient of nature, I curiously found the meticulous and time-consuming process contemplative and meditative. 

It became a sheer necessity for me to try to make something joyous and gleeful. Hopefully something one can pass and get a sense of joie de vivre, or just a moment of joy, in their day.