Buckman Idol
Because much of my time is spent at the Artspace Gallery in Lake Oswego, people often ask if I’m an artist. That’s a loaded question, since “artist” means different things to different people. Some consider you an artist if you make money selling your art, whatever it is. More egalitarian folks think anyone who makes art is an artist, and that’s a lovely opinion to hold; I like the inclusivity and generosity of it, and in my better moments I agree. I tend to get hung up on the romantic difference between art and craft. An artist, I long thought, had “something to say”—an idea or an emotion they had to get out through their medium of choice. Whereas a craftsperson had an affinity for photography or watercolor or ceramics, enjoyed making things, and did so with a skill honed by effort and repetition. In practice, perhaps the difference is one of nerve: an artist is someone who is comfortable declaring the product of their effort art, regardless of its degree of polish or sophistication. I’ve enjoyed primitive or “sloppy” craft at times, but for much of my life I sought to develop skill sufficient to do something “well enough” for it to qualify as art, as if there was a barometer with a clear threshold between dilettante and practitioner. That belief had kept me from sharing artistic efforts for years. I didn’t publish my photography until I had developed a facility with creating images I could be proud of; I avoided sharing watercolors, sketches, and other work for fear I would be dismissed as amateurish. It’s a silly preoccupation to have around art, and it held me back.
Last year I started playing with cardboard as a sculptural medium. I immediately took to it as if my hands knew how to bend, fold, and hot glue the stuff into the desired shapes. I helped PDX artist Lola Lebowski with a project for an avant-garde dance piece—giant hands made of cardboard and papier-mâché—and the shapes just happened.
My next exploration was inspired by a visit to the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. I was dazzled by the many idols and sculptures depicting gods, farmers, priests, mothers… and I imagined a west coast without colonization, where the MezoAmerican tribes responsible for so much amazing art had ventured further and further up the west coast to settle in the Buckman neighborhood of Portland. This is an exercise in admiration and inspiration, not appropriation; an attempt to pay homage to the people who, centuries ago, created art for religion, education, and other motives which are in many cases lost to us.
Buckman Idol is cardboard and hot glue, with a face 16” wide by 16” high by 5.5” deep, with a wall-flush wingspan of 33”. She was accepted into the group show “Faces and Facades” at GaGallery in October 2025. She didn’t sell and now resides in my home office.
