| Statement |

Texture is very important. From the moment we draw our first breath, shocked by the texture of the very air that gives us life–we crave an unexpected sensory experience. That is where my work comes from: from a small boy running his hands through the cool dirt under a ramshackle porch on a scorching East Texas afternoon, delighting in “doodle-bugs.”

From a child so craving knowledge of a hot stove he burned the whole palm of his hand; from a young man stroking the smooth fender of his first automobile; from a father holding the soft, pulsing newness of his own child, whom he has just delivered from his wife’s womb.

| Texture is part of everything |

I am a descendant of unknown people, plucked from the origins of a world where aesthetic expression paralleled the rituals of daily life. Forbidden their native ritual expression, my ancestors owned only the vast dark chasm of loss that separated them from their home.

They built lives based on a conscious fear. Desperation and alienation, ultimately used as fuel for cunning survival strategies in a generally unfriendly “new home” called America.

Thus communication, or a refusal to engage in common Eurocentric American forms of language, becomes a priority for survival and the preoccupation of African American culture. We seek other, more complete and significant forms of expression that will allow us to convey a heritage that is beyond words.

Mine is the search for origins that exist in genetic memory, which makes it nearly impossible to focus simply on surface. The search is motivated by a hunger for structural and formal content. It is an expression of faith, a supernatural vision.

Through these works, I have placed my trust in the Ancestors to guide instinctual conceptual choices and material usage, which I hope will speak to you in voices without words.