BIO

It might seem curious for a land-locked Colorado sculptor to be so obsessed with the sea and all its creatures. I suppose it had something to do with being born in Okinawa in 1967. That closer proximity to the sea and its mysterious inhabitants filled my young life. I was scuba diving like a fish by the age of 13 - never wanting to leave the water. By the time I came to the USA with my parents in 1973, my appreciation for the ocean and its many beings were part of my very DNA.

I was lucky enough to have a wonderful mother, Tomiko, who devoted much of her time to my artistic development and appreciation. I spent countless hours by her side learning to draw. This enriching background served me well all through school. I can still see the look of pride on my mother's face when I was awarded a full scholarship in fine art at Metropolitan State University of Denver. I have always had a dimensional brain - seeing in shapes and colors - innately understanding the play of light and shadow as dimensional object spin around in my imagination. It took me many years to understand what an unusual gift this ability was and to push it to the limit.

The best laid plans for a fine art career after college eluded me. I was having way too much fun right out of college making gigantic 3D sculptures for raves, nightclubs and special events. What started as a fluke - making over-the-top 3D projects - soon became my livelihood. This was such a specialized field. Only a handful of large-scale prop studios even existed in the USA at the time. There were no road maps. No neat little guidebooks filled with indexes regarding materials, tools, techniques and safety. The handful of other artists out there doing similar work kept their cards close to their chest regarding their processes and materials. It was a rough and tumble world of learning the hard way by trial and error. Successes followed by failure. Ten mistakes made for every right move or material discovered. It was strangely gratifying many years later to have others covet the proprietary processes I had finally developed on my own. 

With the birth of my first son, my path took a fork once more. The artistic fabrication skills I had gathered to that point made it a natural transition to making commercial sculptures, signage and props for a wide variety of national and international clients - from small businesses to world class corporation and everything in between. No two projects were ever the same - with lessons learned from each and every one of them. And all the while those skills building - one upon of the other - until I found myself 32 years later able to create pretty much any dimensional art I could dream up.

And dream, I did. As I got older, I found my creative mind kept returning to the sea. I had never stopped scuba diving. Thankfully, my fascination and reverence for all things in the natural world - land or sea - were as stronger than ever. The work you see before you now, my "Biomorphics," are inspired by that reverence and awe of nature. I wish everyone could visit the underwater worlds that are such a part of me. The diversity of life. The psychedelic colors no drug-induced high could ever replicate. The other worldly creatures so unlike us. Tiny sea flowers, coral, grasses. Unimaginable color combinations camouflaging unimaginable beings. The infinite quiet. I love it all. 

I carry those visions with me everywhere I go. They are a part of me. It brings me great pleasure to create these larger-than-life sculptures for you now - to bring a portion of these biological mysteries topside for your enjoyment.