I am a maker. I have made ballets, built costumes, created giant sculptural elements for store displays, designed jewelry, and of course made many paintings, drawings, and sculptures. My geographic wanderings include growing up in Hawaii, going to college in Oregon, and moving to New York City in the 80s, where I co-founded and co-directed a company called BalletWorks. It was in New York where I really came of age as an artist, working first with music, sound, and the human body as a choreographer, then with material objects as a visual artist and, with Field Trip Collective, creating sculptures in performance with live music. I now live and work in western Massachusetts where I make sculpture ranging from intimate wall-hung pieces to large public works.

My work reflects my fascination with materials and the visual power of the cumulative. If an object draws my attention, the idea of thousands of that same object pulls me like a force of nature – 12,000 porcupine quills, 2,000 dog tags, 30,000 glass beads are just some of the materials I have used. If you have ever been surfing and caught a wave, you have glimpsed what I feel when I conceive a piece.

The last few years have found me adding a focus on language to my visual expression. While I have not given up on my obsession with cumulation, a focus on the power of language, who gets to wield it, and its ability to both reveal and conceal has bubbled up within the issues that my work deals with.

My experiences of culture from the Pacific to the Atlantic, from looking like “a local” to having my citizenship questioned, from being a loner to finding my community have informed my work. The work itself comments on the collision and blending of cultures, conflicting cultural symbols, and the hubris of humans.

pmdart [at] gmail [dot] com