Concept:
I reconstruct the identities of my materials. I take a discarded item, deconstruct it into its parts and reassemble them in new ways. An old forklift palette becomes a coffee table, a spray generator cart turns into a chair. Our state of industry yields loads of waste that we usually take as just that, waste. The most common example in my work is the forklift palette. It is made of "scrap wood" in an industrial park for the sake of transporting a commercial product. After the transport, the palette has fulfilled its purpose and is discarded as trash. While I recognize the functional value of this process, I believe we can take these materials a few steps further. This is not just scrap wood, we must take into account its history and context. These "scraps" came from trees that were cut down to "serve" humans. Much like we use only the "good" parts of cows and discard the rest, our trees are suffering the same fate. In recognizing this supposed waste as valuable and reconstructing it into new and useful objects, or just plain beautiful ones, we are honoring the history of the material and the power of its source, the earth. This concept is subsequently reflected in the resulting piece.

Esthetic:
Following this principle of renewal, I seek to redefine standards of craftsmanship and beauty. On one hand, modern cabinetmakers and furniture designers have long been caught up in a counterproductive obsession with certain characteristics: perfect joints, smooth surfaces, details that are more concerned with craftsmanship than beauty. On the other hand, modern designers seem to have become obsessed with the use of man-made materials such as plastics, primarily concerned with slick lines and perfect curves. Maybe this is a reflection of human's need to control their environment, to overly define and design our space in a quest for absolute predictability and proof of purposefulness. These philosophies seem limited. The ever-changing character of our surroundings is what makes life interesting. The unscientific randomness of nature is the very thing that keeps us alive and striving. My work seeks to reflect this.

From childhood on, we are persuaded to follow certain "rules" of beauty and craftsmanship. We are so bombarded by these "standards" that we soon forget to pay attention to the development of our own personal tastes. In working with discarded materials and freeing myself of adherence to standards, I try to be particularly attentive to my preferences. When successful, I have found the results to be very rewarding. I have discovered the beauty of certain objects, like the confounding qualities of weathered and nail-hole-ridden, rough milled palette wood. The result is intensely captivating. This discovery of beauty has also taken place on a conceptual level, on which I've discovered a tendency towards a variety of repetitive motions.

Method:
The method to my madness is improvisational and intuitive. It dawned on me one day when I decided to make a chair using only a jigsaw and pine 2x4s, the remnant of my brother's loft-bed. I never planned farther ahead than the joint I was working on. After each addition I carefully examined the "status quo" from all angles until it "led me" to the next joint. It was an exhilarating process, as I found that this method elevates the importance of the creation process to the importance of its result. Like Jazz musicians improvise to capture the momentary essence of the song, I improvised to enhance the creative process during the time of the process itself. I envision a basic form, then get to work and make all other choices as the need arises. This refusal to be stuck on one idea and plan of action allows the work to become all that it can. It gives the object life, because it's creation is dependant on a certain set of circumstances, including the availability of space, my judgment, time constraints, lighting, tool accessibility, materials, etc. This set of conditions can never be perfectly duplicated, lending the piece historical and contextual depth as well as absolute singularity.