Artist Bio

Artist Statement

My residence in Bucks County, Pennsylvania permits me to appreciate the true beauty that nature brings us. My sculpture represents an intense relationship between myself and the material with which I work. My art, which symbolizes life, comes from within the material. I first look for a suggested image in wood or stone that can be enhanced to represent a human or animal form, be it realistic, representational or abstract. Many times this is not seen until the grain is visible. Using my tools I release the figure from within the material. Contrasting color, texture and grain helps separate or bring together the parts of the figure. The finished form satisfies my creative urge to represent life from nature.

Biography

Born in Philadelphia and raised in Glenside, Pennsylvania, Ron relocated in 1979 with his family to Haycock Township in Upper Bucks County. Living amidst tall trees and granite glacier boulders has inspired him to work with what natural materials are readily available. His early influence in sculpture began with a fascination of the statues in church. Duplication of the realism portrayed in the stone statues became imbedded in his mind . . . but in the 1960’s and 70’s abstract art was much simpler to create. While pursuing a career as a brick and stonemason, Ron worked with found scrap metal from construction sites creating abstract welded metal sculptures. During that time he worked and supervised various high-rise, residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional construction projects in the Delaware Valley. He studied for a period of time with Linda Brenner at the Cheltenham Art Center. Working as a mason for thirteen years and then teaching the trade for seventeen years Ron acquired the skills necessary to creatively apply the mallet and chisel techniques to wood and stone, transforming the natural materials into works of art. As he studied sculpture at the Baum School of Art with Richard Lieberman, Ben Marcune and Jonathan Hertzel, he rekindled his early awareness of the complexity of human and animal forms by creating it within the natural materials of the earth. During the summer of 2000 Ron renewed his passion for figurative art by sculpting in the renowned marble region in Pietrasanta, Italy, a Mecca for stone sculptors worldwide.
Ron’s preferred carving material is Pennsylvania red cedar and also work with clay and other varieties of locally found wood, alabaster from Utah and marbles from Carrara, Italy and Vermont. Seeing images in pieces of driftwood or firewood is becoming a large part of his collected materials that are waiting to be enhanced and revealed to lovers of these sculptural portraits from nature. Ron also works with ornamental lawn and garden sculptures and actively pursue commission work with all materials.
Utilizing his teaching skills, he teaches sculpture classes in his Haycock studio through the Bucks County Community College continuing education program. (Act 48 credit certified)

“I invent nothing, I rediscover.” Auguste Rodin

Education

• Millersville State College
• Cheltenham Art Center
• Baum School of Art
• Temple University
• Pietrasanta, Italy

“Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind” Leonardo da Vinci

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Exhibitions

“A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things, a poet in words, a musician by sounds.” Henry Moore

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