I am an artist currently living in Orlando, FL. I studied fine arts at New World School of the Arts, and Florida International University where I received a BFA in 1994 with a major in Ceramics. My artistic interests are somewhat eclectic. I enjoy working on a broad range of media and experimenting with different styles. I'm not too concerned with being different or original. Sometimes these mantras of modern art can get in the way of finding yourself.

Art is a multi-headed hydra. It has meant vastly different things at different times, in different places, to different people. To some, it means nothing. To me, art is what I do when I'm inspired - what I sometimes do with the greatest of ease and sometimes with immense struggle - what I no longer do enough of.

In my everyday life, I take great pleasure in doing things manually, the old fashioned way. I'm fascinated by hand-built objects - tools, lamps, furniture, etc. I like to surround myself with such things, and I am naturally curious about all building processes. So some of my work is functional and quite ordinary. There is a part of me that is always trying to build the inside of my cave, one piece at a time. Wherever I go, whatever I see, when something catches my eye, my first desire is always to build my own. To learn from it. To do it my way. To understand why it was conceived in the first place.

Part of me also gravitates towards the human figure. I like realism, in particular the illusion of realism. An illusion of something real, born out of the artist's sense of aesthetics, the keenness of his eyes, the skill of his hands, and the qualities of the medium he is working with. So from time to time, I am drawn back to drawing or sculpting in a classical style. I may be inspired by a piece in a museum or a person walking on the street. There is something I find very gratifying in studying the human figure and the process of discovering how you choose to deviate from reality to make the work more real to your own aesthetics.

I used to have various image galleries on this website but I'm thinking of changing it to a more intimate blog format. For now, this is a piece I am working on. It is a terra-cotta bust about 18" in height. When I started working on this piece I had some approaches I wanted to explore, both stylistically and technical, and there were some unexpected consequences along the way. Currently, I'm drying the piece and I'm making terra sigillata for the surface.

I can be reached at roneld@lores.com