I have always been driven to create. The potential of what could be was something of which I had a sense. Growing up in a family of engineers and physicists, I assumed that my path would also be along these lines. Art was very much in my soul but it wasn’t something that I thought of as a career option.

I graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in Physical Geography. Though Geography was my major, any elective class or free time was spent in the university sculpture department where I helped with bronze casting and created my own body of work.

I was selected for the Peace Corps in 1992 and was a part of the first group of volunteers to go to the former Soviet Union. I lived and worked in Uzbekistan for two years where I taught English. During this period I painted and made cardboard models of sculptures in my free time. It was a very interesting time in history in a very exotic place.

In 1997 I enrolled in a MFA program in Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design. This field really appealed to both my right and left brain. In this intense course of study we were taught design methodologies as well as the tools of industrial design; drawing, model making, computer aided design, rapid prototyping and computer aided manufacturing.

For the past decade I have stayed with sculpture as a way of illustrating form and ideas. In the near future I am looking forward to shifting the focus of my work to also include video, sound installations and photography. View my artist's statement.

JM
2008