This piece was completed more than a year ago, and I’m just now sharing this image of it, courtesy of Ambient Art Projects, where the sculpture debuted last year in a show called “Pairs.” The form originated from the paper-folding technique that I’ve been using to generate sculptures for the past several years.

At the risk of repeating myself, let me say briefly that this kind of dumb origami that I do in preparation for a finished sculpture suits my approach with these works. I like artwork that makes an impact without resorting to virtuosity. Technical or stylistic flourish too often elicits responses like, “Oooh, look what the artist can do,” when I’d rather hear, “That thing’s cool.” So, folding paper into simple forms is one way to arrive at interesting, distinct, but not flashy, shapes.

Using rules of pattern and repetition also gets the artist out of the way. The logic of color and composition in pieces like this one is evident enough, and my interest in this kind of organization, again, is to let the piece speak for itself without too many visual cues that point back to the artist.

Finally, I want my 3-dimensional sculpture to point back to its 2-dimensional roots. This piece and others like it seem to be paintings that have been folded and assembled into something that is in the round. I want the abstract language I use in my artwork to be relevant to the world around that artwork, and by combining 2- and 3-dimensional elements in works like Whirligig I think I’m getting somewhere.

Our world is what it is and we have infinite means to describe it. The work of an artist is to select from among the limitless ways of describing our world and make something resonant and even new with the few tools in our hands. I’m drawn to the omnipresence of stuff that’s either 2- or 3- dimensional in our world, and (more importantly than my own private interest) I think there are essential qualities of the world that can be described by making things that embody flatness and roundness in different ways.

The second dimension is the realm of ideas; the third dimension, experience. The second is literature, drawing, painting, photography, film, tv, computer; the third is sculpture, architecture, theatre, music, sport. The second is Plato; the third Aristotle. The second is a love letter; the third is sex.

So, I have a lot of material to work with, and I’ll be lucky to do any of it justice.