These are the finished clay leaves from the leaves given to the fallen leaves project from our friend Hannah. Thanks Hannah!

There is something about fall colored leaves and water that just intrigues  me to no end. 

Long day of sculpting leave, sore back, but so worth it! 

Neither achy back, nor sore feet, nor creaky bones shall keep me from my goal.

Color is the power which directly influences the soul
-Wassily Kandinsky  

To manipulate life, toss the bright-colored orbs to mix with the dark ones, blending the variations of truth. –Ray Bradbury

Traces of clay after cutting out leaves.

I was recently asked why leaves? the reason I choose fallen leaves is because they often symbolize death in literature and mythology and the tree is often used as the symbol of family or life. Each leaf I create is unique to represent the unique life lost. Thanks for the great question, please continue to ask questions and share your thoughts on this issue and the project.

I went for a walk tonight and listened as the wind rustled the leaves and watched as the trees swayed gently. It was nice to be able to just appreciate the beautiful nature of a tree and not think about it as a source for leaves for my project.

So I was watching the birds outside my house flying and made a silly realization, I am a little slow sometimes, when people draw bird wings we tend to try to draw them symmetrically regardless of what the bird is doing but watching these birds fly made me realize how different the wings look depending on what the bird is doing. When they are turning the wing they are turning towards shortens flattens, the wing they are turning away from stretches and lifts if the are gong up, it stretches and drops in angle if they are going down.  

This is what happens when I am left unsupervised to long! 

I think the cat may be feeling a little ignored

I don't know when it happened or if it has always just been this way but at some point creating became an irresistible need and not a choice. 

Just a fun really quick sketch, I am trying to condition myself to do one a day.

I love when the clay is just the right consistency, a heavy cream butter. I am getting closer to being able to get there on a fairly consistent bases.

Raw leaf number 800 for the fallen leaf project. the flickering aspen leaf

playing with the idea of lichen abstracts in the spirit of the abstract expressionist.

Piles of Clay!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you Charles White for your generous donation to the project which allowed me to purchase big piles of fresh clay and keep this project rolling forward. 

Fresh cuts. I keep watching the trees waiting for them to bloom with new leaves, cone on already! 

I could not believe the near perfect heart shape this leaf makes. I wonderful symbol for this project. 

I am creating 1537 unique leaf sculptures, each leaf represents one child lost to child abuse each year.


I only have 4 days left on my kickstarter fund raiser before I run out of time please consider becoming a contributer before it is to late. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928728079/fallen-leaves

This is one of the raw leaves that i will be using for my project. I really love the rich colors on this leaf. Only  6 days left on my kickstarter project please consider becoming a contributer at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928728079/fallen-leaves

progress

This is some of my leaves from the falling leaves project drying. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928728079/fallen-leaves After sculpting the leaves I like to drape them over rocks to give them a natural shape.

For this project I mold the leaves around rocks to give them a natural shape. 
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928728079/fallen-leaves

this is my newest leaf, well maybe not but at least it explains why I have to spend 10 minutes cleaning the board before I can throw any clay, darn cat anyway, good thing he is cute.  
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928728079/fallen-leaves

the cutting edge, one of the 1,537 leaves that will complete this project. Off and sculpting today. 

this is 10 lbs. of the roughly 600 pounds of clay that will be going into completing this project. Please check out my kickstarter page at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928728079/fallen-leaves

I thought this was a particularly interesting leaf I found for my leaf project. Busy scanning. check out my kickstarter Project at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928728079/fallen-leaves

I am so exited to have launched my leaves kick starter project I hope you will visit the link below and learn about becoming a collaborator on this project. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928728079/fallen-leaves 

the leaf project

I have started a new art project and will be launching a kickstarter project tomorrow to help raise funds. Each year approximately 1,537 children die as the result of being abused by parents and/or caretakers.  My hope as with most of my art is to try to make sense out of chaos. Art for me offers the chance to short circuit the verbal/cognitive language that we often use to try to understand and make sense of our world a process that to often falls short. I have a blog http://fallenleavesproject.blogspot.com/ specifically dedicated to this project that I hope you will check out and that you will consider helping me fun my project and engage in the ongoing discussion about the role of art in making sense out of our world. 

Sketch of the Flat Iron building in New York.

Sketch of a bridge in Central Park

This is just a quick sketch of a tree, I am working on a very large clay project and have not been doing much else so thought I would start doing a sketch a day to keep the brain going.