Inspired by Nature

I grew up spending summers in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, on the land where my grandparents’ farm once stood. The land had been in my family since the 1800s, perched on a limestone cliff off the shoreline of Lake Michigan. My grandpa built the wooden stairs that led us down to the rocky beach. It wasn’t the kind of place you’d spread out a towel—there was no sand at all, just stones. We skipped them, stacked them, and sometimes played baseball with them if my brother and I found the right stick for a bat.

Those summers are long past, but they stuck with me.

In 2018, my wife and I got married on a similarly beautiful shore of Lake Michigan in Bear Lake. It was low-key and intimate, tacked onto the last day of a family vacation. We hadn’t thought much about decorations, so just days before, I walked the shoreline and gathered what I could find. Stacked cairns, and smooth stones in jars of lake water; it was simple, but it felt right. Putting it together reminded me of being a kid again, making things from whatever the lake handed me.

A few years later, in 2020, we moved to Grand Haven where my wife grew up. We don’t live right on the water, but we’re close enough to get there often, which feels like a gift compared to the long drive up US-2 and County Road 513 to my grandparents’ place. We spend as much time as we can at the lake and we’re at the beach in every season now. We hike there, rest there, and we collect what the lake offers.

Driftwood has become a more recent medium for me. Sometimes a piece already has a shape or movement in it, almost like it’s halfway to being an animal in my mind’s eye. I just try to see that through, to bring out the potential that’s already there. Not so much to force it to be something, but to honor the possibility already there.

Contact Me
A man and a young boy lying on the sand at the beach during sunset, smiling and looking at the camera. There are small rocks in the foreground and a few people in the background near the water.
A table decorated with a vase of green leaves and dried flowers, a jar filled with multicolored stones, and stacked smooth gray stones, outdoors with blurred people in the background.
Stacked rocks on a wooden table near a grassy beach with kayaks and dog relaxing in the background under clear blue sky.
Close-up of a glass jar filled with small, multicolored pebbles and stones, placed on a white surface with a blurred background.
A newlywed couple in wedding attire embracing and kissing at the beach, with the ocean and blue sky in the background.
A handmade animal sculpture made of natural materials like bark and sticks, resembling an elephant, situated on a wooden surface in a room with a window and potted plants in the background.
A smiling man wearing sunglasses and a black cap, and a young boy on a sandy beach with waves and a cloudy sky in the background.