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It’s frequently tough to figure out how a person ever finds his or her way into a specific line of work. In my case, for example, I more or less fell into the faux-rock trade, never imagining that what seemed like a blind stumble would ultimately unlock my imagination in a whole range of unexpected ways. It all started when I was working in the oil industry in Alaska in the 1980s. When petroleum prices dropped, I was out of work and moved back to my home town of Tucson, Ariz., where I was hired as a laborer by the Larson Company, which was among the trailblazing firms starting to work in faux rock. I began by mixing concrete and did my fair share of grunt work. As luck would have it, I began showing some artistic promise and in a relatively short time found myself working on major projects and learning the process literally from the ground up. After a couple of hard years, I became a superintendent, a promotion that led to my involvement in major overseas projects, including aquariums in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, as well as an extended stay in Italy. These were wonderful, formative experiences, but eventually I struck out on my own and
At its most basic, public art creates spaces in which people experience art without paying hard-earned dollars to own it or going to a museum or gallery to see it. Public art is also about giving everyone within eyeshot new types of experiences amid their daily routines. Perhaps it's an object they'll pass on the way to the subway or an environment they'll spot out of the corner of an eye as they drive to the grocery store. Maybe it's a place where people gather to eat lunch or a landmark for arranging meetings with friends. Whether it's familiar to the viewer or sneaks up unexpectedly, the work becomes
