For the last 20 years I’ve owned and operated Bollinger Atelier, a highly specialized Contemporary art casting and fabrication studio which produces my work and that of other artists. Prior to acquiring the Atelier I was the General Manager of the nationally recognized Art Foundry, Tallix (now known as UAP) located in Beacon New York and Shidoni Art Foundry in Sante Fe, New Mexico.
I had little to no exposure to art growing up. I was raised on the Sioux reservations in North and South Dakota, my parents were teachers. Once exposed to the reality that one could be an artist as a profession, I was drawn to sculpture, especially Brancusi and Giacometti. In college I majored in sculpture and business administration at Dickinson State University in North Dakota and that is really what introduced me into the art world.
When it comes to my own work, I ask: what is the connection, the betterment, the mutual reason? Through the process of creation, I am seeking to discover the origin; The Spark… that which drives us to keep going. What is the connection to the universe? My work ultimately evolves to forms that are upward and optimistic…
And at the center of all of this is my belief that there is something greater than the “us”; a force… a drive, the driven. This leads me to think about my relationship to and with the environment; the eco-centric life. I will continue to explore form and the inner-world of what drives me. My heritage, North Dakota, my family, as a child living as an outsider on the reservation, love…
The dichotomy of loving humanity and often wishing to be alone. Not wanting to be lonely but relishing isolation at times. The universality of all of those things and how I can express this through form; The Spark of Life.
