“Ode to Seneca” was conceived simultaneously with “Seven Hammers for Seven Brothers” in 2008. Both grew on my bench at the same time until they eventually caught fire and fulfilled their respective destinies. The objects affixed therein were accumulated off the cliffs and beaches of Lake Seneca where my studio was perched for 14 years (1983-1997). My two consuming passions were woodworking and stone masonry as I built my castle on the sea. These two trades I honed into solid skills that kept in in good stead for building Seneca in a way that would be permanent and seamless. The stone would be shed from the cliffs each spring thaw and deliver onto my pebble beach below an assortment of interesting fossils and cleaved blue stone in all manner of angular shapes. These objects inspired me, so I collected them over many years. Just as the inorganic collection grew, so did my organic collection of wood objects that came to me in the form of flotsam on my beach. These curious, curvilinear shapes of all manner of floating wood objects would collide with the rock objects that fell off the cliffs above. Organic and inorganic duking it out on my beach with blue stone the foundation underneath. This is how “Seneca…” is constructed by dint of the two trades I had finally mastered. The “Drums of Seneca” still make a haunting sound I still remember as being chilling and spacey. 40 miles long and 750 feet at its deepest, this lake made a huge impression on my growth as an artist. I vowed I would capture it someday.