You probably need to know that I graduated from art college in 1994. In the self-assessment of my 'practice' as it was, I decided to focus in on the potato stuff. It was fun to do, and something I could realistically continue to pursue whatever my circumstances.

Actually I was already in my studio at that time, and gave it over to this worthy study.

I came to reasoning that if I could make a (stable) jigsaw of sorts out of potato - I could truly say that I had some mastery over the medium. So this was the main thrust of things over the period 1996 to 1998.

And I did get there.. Using a handmade cutter (with an allowance for the shrinkage and distortion built in) I was eventually able to stamp jigsaw shapes from potato slices, and process them using only heat, air and cunning to output a stable interlocking - or tesselating jigsaw piece.

I played with contexts and pulling the process somehow into the final product in a few different ways.. including short narratives and sketches alongside the potato pieces.

This is still the real stumbling block for me. For me it's all about all of it. The fiddling, the planning, the devising, the cooking and the displaying/showing/sharing.
It was about this point that I renamed my activity from Art to Fun, and the products of it as Stuff.

Somewhere in there I started the "Ascent Of Man" series. This was a (purposefully) grandiose title for works that used a simple silhoutte / 2D potato figure.. walking or striding in profile. An offshoot was "Near and Far" - 2 figures on hills that were connected on parallel hinges..So one could be behind or ahead of the other..

The latest stuff I did with potato was a series of truncated icosahedra. The first coincided with World Cup 98 and was subtitled as such (The Truncated Icosahedron is the shape otherwise known as the Buckball, or a "football" - its the one with pentagons and hexagons). These were satisfyling solid, and teetered precariously on being Art again.

All this work is horribly absent from this collection... but I will endeavour to get at least a sample up here soon.

In the meantime, keep the faith, and drop me line with any comments.