In creating my marquetry sculpture, I call upon my lifelong love of assemblage and classical drawing. My materials are exotic natural and dyed veneers that I fragment, assemble, and reassemble, and ultimately laminate over complex sculptural forms of my own devising. I consider the resulting imagery as personal narratives expressed in my own language and mode of communication.

Except for its logistical complexities, my use of this classical technique has little in common with traditional marquetry. As far as I know, marquetry has never before been used in contemporary sculpture. Though admittedly the process is demanding of precision and focus, and is fraught with difficulty and frustration, the results are worth all the effort. To my eye, marquetry is unrivaled for sheer beauty, expressiveness, and visual drama.

Historically, during the time of Louis XIV, marquetry was the most highly prized of all art forms. Marquetry was used almost exclusively as a decorative appliqué to furniture and functional objects of art. In the early 19th century, however, marquetry was put aside for the most part as a very expensive mode of ornamentation.

Traditional marquetry uses floral designs and natural scenes as decorative motifs. Bypassing all traditional applications, I concentrate on fragmenting imagery and arranging the imagery into surreal combinations and juxtapositions to create a dialog of irrational reality. I view my marquetry sculpture as a union of two powerful art forms: assemblage and classical drawing.