Exhibiting art depicting the unclothed human body in the United States can be like stepping on a hornet’s nest.  While the female body is welcomed in most settings, the male body is highly regulated.  Early in my career, for a commissioned sculpture in one privately owned public space, I had to negotiate over the size and placement of the penises so they were virtually indiscernible.  Yet, the theme of my work is human connection. If I could not show the male body, too many important permutations of human interaction went away.

I came to realize that to show work in the public sphere I would have to neuter my figures.  I wasn’t happy with that restriction until I saw a Keith Haring retrospective. He was known for his stick figure graffiti and Public Art sculptures.  But I had never seen his private work.  Those stick figures have enormous penises and it is exuberantly homoerotic.  Clearly, he had made the choice to be accessible in American public spaces.   I decided I could do that, too.

But then I realized something else.  While sex impels Haring’s private work, liberating ideas about gender impels my work.  I particularly push against the powerful social pressure on each of us to narrowly conform to capacities and behaviors that are defined as the “nature” of being a woman or a man.

With this in mind, I evolved new approaches to making figures.  Dismissing the convention of making a body either female or male, I made each body both and gave them forms that suggest both breasts and a penis.

The ebullience of the figures recognize that we derive energy from the dynamics between the feminine and masculine that co-exist in us all. We are a spectrum of possibilities, and our lives are richer for allowing their expression. While I’m disappointed to be unable to exhibit this work in public non-art spaces, it has allowed me to more fully explore my ideas about human nature.

Exhibiting art depicting the unclothed human body in the United States can be like stepping on a hornet’s nest.  While the female body is welcomed in most settings, the male body is highly regulated.  Early in my career, for a commissioned sculpture in one privately owned public space, I had to negotiate over the size and placement of the penises so they were virtually indiscernible.  Yet, the theme of my work is human connection. If I could not show the male body, too many important permutations of human interaction went away.

“My Vivid Imagination” (formerly “Battlefield”), 2020.
Powder coated steel wire and steel strip on painted wood panel,
40″ H x 59″ W x 5″ D

I came to realize that to show work in the public sphere I would have to neuter my figures.  I wasn’t happy with that restriction until I saw a Keith Haring retrospective. He was known for his stick figure graffiti and Public Art sculptures.  But I had never seen his private work.  Those stick figures have enormous penises and it is exuberantly homoerotic.  Clearly, he had made the choice to be accessible in American public spaces.   I decided I could do that, too.

“Hide and Seek I”“, 2023. \
Painted steel wire on wood panel,
22 1/2″ H x 27″ W x 2″ D

But then I realized something else.  While sex impels Haring’s private work, liberating ideas about gender impels my work.  I particularly push against the powerful social pressure on each of us to narrowly conform to capacities and behaviors that are defined as the “nature” of being a woman or a man.

With this in mind, I evolved new approaches to making figures.  Dismissing the convention of making a body either female or male, I made each body both and gave them forms that suggest both breasts and a penis.

“Hide and Seek II”, 2024.
Painted steel wire on wood panel
27 5/8″ H x 29″ W x 4″ D

The ebullience of the figures recognize that we derive energy from the dynamics between the feminine and masculine that co-exist in us all. We are a spectrum of possibilities, and our lives are richer for allowing their expression. While I’m disappointed to be unable to exhibit this work in public non-art spaces, it has allowed me to more fully explore my ideas about human nature.