About the Artist...

Born in Oregon's Grande Ronde Valley, Dale grew up in and spent most of his life in the mountains of Idaho. His other "sense of place" was shaped by living for five years in Arizona's Sonora desert and developing a love for the American Southwest. Of Celtic decent, his direct-line ancestors include most of the Kings of Scotland, as well as Cherokee grandparents from Arkansas. His art reflects both heritages, but in an eclectic blend that is uniquely his own.

In Dale's words:

"From the time that I was a child, I had a desire to be an artist. However, life seems to take its own turns, and I spent most of it as a businessman and entrepreneur. Discovering a love of sculpture in the 1980's, I was able to find time to produce a number of bronzes in the years since for private collectors. Now retired from the business world, I am at this time able to live my dream of being an artist full time.

"I was originally a 'self-taught' artist, as all artists are in reality. I returned to Boise State University for four years, when I was in my early 50's, majoring in Fine Art with an emphasis in Sculpture. This was done with a desire to learn the complete 'hands-on' foundry process of working in bronze, from mold making to casting to finishing and patinas. Though my first love is bronze sculpture, along the way I also picked up a love of working in both clay and wood.

"I have been told that much of my work is 'too contemporary to be traditional' and 'too traditional to be contemporary.' I am not content to work in stark realism, except to combine elements of realism with abstraction, or with elements of pure design. I have little use for 'labels' and can relate to an often used quote from Soren Kierkegaard: 'Once you label me, you negate me.' Labels, it has been said, are only something to put a price tag on. There is an anonymous quote that 'Love is just a word, a label: real love is unexplainable.' I would paraphrase that and say that 'real art is unexplainable.' What it does share, when it reaches its highest level, is that it communicates spirit to spirit. It is that intangible something that lifts a person 'out of themselves' and into communion with realms beyond the normal human thought process.

"A reflection of that is found in my favorite art quote by Mikel Dufrenne:

'The Imagination is that which is least human in man... it wrenches him away from himself and plunges him into ecstasy; it puts him into secret communication with the powers of nature. Who speaks to me with my own voice? From himself comes a marvelous stranger called ART.'

"In sharing my art with others, may a select number connect with that same energy and spirit that I experience during its creation."