First do no harm.

“To have said and done nothing is a great power, but it should not be abused” is a phrase that I found somewhere a long time ago and only recently discovered who had said it: Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, a French nobleman born in 1754 .The context was different but the meaning still works for me. It stands as principle at the root of my work. I have been reluctant to talk directly about what I do. I’ve allowed the titles I’ve used to indirectly speak for me.

I make objects. There is a case to be made for the object itself as an end goal for making art. Since there is no intended narrative or commentary they can’t be misunderstood. If an object is successful it will give sensual and intellectual satisfaction, maybe some will raise a question - what is the point? Maybe there is no point other that putting an idea into motion and seeing where it goes.

Although I use technology as a tool to make my objects, the technology is only a tool, my pieces are analog - handmade objects, part of the physical world.

The object is more important now than it has ever been, in my opinion. It is hard for most people, to appreciate that they are part of the natural world. They seem not to know it.

The developed countries live a life style that is rapidly destroying the environment. Most educated people know this but can’t do what would have to be done to live in the natural world. And unfortunately, the life style of the developed world is the model that the developing world can’t resist following. TS Eliot famously said that “man cannot tolerate very much reality”. There are many people of good intentions trying to change course but they are opposed by those massaging the system and mangling the truth, their unspoken motto - hypocrisy our shield, inaction our sword.

Physical things are real, they exist. A tomato and a tree are real and exist. If they are destroyed it’s a real loss. But if they are only known as consumable things, and not as a link in the chain of the living world, they are an abstraction and can be destroyed.

As Duchamp used nonsense and provocation to protest Western civilization’s pretentions, I make objects as a mute form of protest against the inexorable rush over the cliff. It’s not something that anyone wants to hear, I’ve kept my mouth shut. I’m attempting to speak now.