With fiber as my medium, I explore wrapped and woven three-dimensional space. I am ceaselessly fascinated by the possibilities posed by a single strand of thread held in tension. As fibrous lines multiply, surfaces emerge. Light reflects from the surfaces and reveals color. Colors become vibrant or fade away. What was transparent grows opaque. Using fibers and light to generate lines, I strive to fill and define sculptural volumes.  I am interested in spatial boundaries and in-between states.

Because of fiber's inherent tensile nature, I must seek out or construct frameworks that act as looms. I scour my environment  for suitable materials, like a spider trying to locate a site to build its web. These frameworks can be found objects like saw blades or window screens, or they can be architectural spaces, but they must be satisfactory structurally and sculpturally.   I am, therefore, intensely engaged with the materials I use, studying them for cues as to how I might handle them.  These armatures eventually define a working method for a particular piece. The work itself might manifest in a fluid, wrapping motion or a more tedious weaving.  Whatever the process, the work pieces all require vast amounts of time and patience.   Often, transformations in the work are visible only after several weeks. Because of this, I am highly conscious of the role my work plays in recording the passage of time. These threads trace my physical motion and provide a visible record of those paths I have taken.  

My work straddles precariously on several boundaries: solidity and transparency; structural stability and collapse; visibility and invisibility.   I strive to create work that primarily engages our sense of sight  by contemplating how light can define structure, surface, and color.

Randy Walker

December  2006