Looking back, my first steps toward a life working with glass were taken on a trail in a Caribbean rainforest. The year was 1994 and I had hiked up a small trail toward the sound of moving water. Before me stood a waterfall, a hundred feet high, descending through the forest, ferns, and cliffs. It was a cascade from a painted dream, and I was mesmerized. I watched how the water began to gather in the river above and brake apart into segments as it fell, before collecting into a perfect pool below...
Looking back, my first steps toward a life working with glass were taken on a trail in a Caribbean rainforest. The year was 1994 and I had hiked up a small trail toward the sound of moving water. Before me stood a waterfall, a hundred feet high, descending through the forest, ferns, and cliffs. It was a cascade from a painted dream, and I was mesmerized. I watched how the water began to gather in the river above and brake apart into segments as it fell, before collecting into a perfect pool below. As I walked away from the falls, the sound fading, my mind and body felt relaxed with a calm I had never experienced before. On a deep level I had the desire to bring the therapeutic flow of water into lives and homes.
Returning to my hometown with a business degree and no formal art education, I accepted a good paying office job. Unable to find fulfillment or inspiration behind a desk, I left with the belief that life was too short to do something I didn’t love. I sat down to have a serious conversation with myself about what I was passionate about. My thoughts kept circling back to water, the source of all my most profound life experiences, and especially to that day by the waterfall. I wanted to share my inspiration by bringing the essence of water into peoples lives.
While working several odd jobs, I happened upon an ad in the newspaper for an open house at a glass shop around the corner. When I arrived, I watched the glass, that amorphous solid at two thousand molten degrees, and the way it flowed. That’s when I knew – this was the only material with the power to capture the movement of water.
After learning to blow glass, I began making fountains in an attempt to capture the moving water, but still, I desired to do more. I wanted to create a solid sculpture that embodied the essence and movement of water – not just a vessel, but the water itself. I experimented, and eventually began to utilize ancient Italian tools along with new tools I created to achieve the style of glass-work I envisioned.
I continue to live in Bellingham, Washington, inspired by the beauty of the Cascade Mountains, San Juan Islands, and the Pacific Ocean’s crashing waves. I travel to Seattle where I personally sculpt each wave by hand. Amidst the heat and the unexpected, I am constantly challenged by the molten medium of hot glass. With my glass sculptures, I work to freeze a moment in time; to capture the beauty, grace, and power of water in its most dynamic form: The Wave.
Looking back, my first steps toward a life working with glass were taken on a trail in a Caribbean rainforest. The year was 1994 and I had hiked up a small trail toward the sound of moving water. Before me stood a waterfall, a hundred feet high, descending through the forest, ferns, and cliffs. It was a cascade from a painted dream, and I was mesmerized. I watched how the water began to gather in the river above and brake apart into segments as it fell, before collecting into a perfect pool below. As I walked away from the falls, the sound fading, my mind and body felt relaxed with a calm I had never experienced before. On a deep level I had the desire to bring the therapeutic flow of water into lives and homes......
Like Norman Rockwell, Seuss personally created every rough sketch, preliminary drawing, final line drawing and finished work for each page of every project he illustrated. Despite the technical and budgetary limitations of color printing during the early and mid-twentieth century, Dr. Seuss the artist was meticulous about color selection. He created specially numbered color charts and elaborate color call-outs to precisely accomplish his vision for each book. Saturated reds and blues, for example, were carefully chosen for The Cat in the Hat to attract and maintain the visual attention of a six-year-old audience. By the time Seuss’s book career took off, sharp draftsman skills were evident in drawings. His ability to move a storyline ahead via illustrations filled with tension, movement and color became a hallmark component of his work, and the surreal images that unfolded over six decades became the catalyst for a humorous and inspired learning experience.
Artist Leo Rijn, the inaugural sculptor for the Dr. Seuss Tribute Collection I, was selected to launch this project due to his prized work with some of today’s top talent in the world of film, entertainment and the visual arts (including Tim Burton, Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg). Rijn has been identified as one of today’s brightest sculpting talents because of his ability to breathe life into the written word and successfully transform two-dimensional ideas into three-dimensional works of art. Universal Studios commissioned Leo to develop and oversee the creation of numerous maquette scale models for the Monumental Dr. Seuss Sculptures at Seuss Landing in Orlando, Florida. Leo was instrumental in the art direction for many of the sculpted characters and buildings now on display at this permanent Seuss attraction. His strikingly accurate Seuss works embody a masterful and intuitive Seussian sensibility, establishing him as a leading talent in interpretive sculpting.
Seuss embarked on an ingenious project in the early 1930s as he evolved from two-dimensional artworks to three-dimensional sculptures. What was most unusual for these mixed-media sculptures was the use of real animal parts including beaks, antlers and horns from deceased Forest Park Zoo animals where Seuss’s father was superintendent. Unorthodox Collection of Taxidermy was born in a cramped New York apartment and included a menagerie of inventive creatures with names like the “Two Horned Drouberhannis,” “Andulovian Grackler,” and “Semi-Normal Green-Lidded Fawn.” Shortly after Seuss created this unique collection of artworks, Look Magazine dubbed Seuss “The World’s Most Eminent Authority on Unheard-Of Animals.” To this day, Seuss’s Unorthodox Collection of Taxidermy remains as some of the finest examples of his inventive and multi-dimensional creativity.
Illustrator by day, surrealist by night, Seuss created a body of irrepressible work that redefines this American icon as an iconographic American artist. Yet, the Secret Art often shows a side of the artist that most readers, familiar with him through his classic children’s books, have never seen. This collection, created over a period of more than 60 years, encompasses the entirety of Seuss’s multi-dimensional talent. The artistic golden thread highlighted throughout this collection is apparent in each wildly imaginative and surreal Secret Art image. The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss is an inimitable collection of artworks created at night for his own personal enjoyment. These works were rarely, if ever, exhibited during his lifetime and provide a deeper glimpse into the art and life of this celebrated American Icon.
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