ARTIST'S STATEMENT

I was born on the island of S. Miguel, Azores, Portugal in 1955.  I immigrated with my parents to Canada in 1968.  Being at the young age of 12 years old, the biggest part of my academic education was in Canada. 

As a young adult facing society´s demand for future planning, I completed my life´s academic education by attending university studies towards a degree in education.  Like most of us planning our adulthood, personal and exterior circumstances get in the way of what we call life, and voila, fork in the road.  I met my beautiful wife of 42 years now and pursued my inner hunger to build and create. 

I chose a path of a hands-on career carrying always my creative hunger in the back pocket.  From 1978 to 2006, I followed a career as a journeyman welder and steel fabricator.  This life´s venture with my creativity in my back pocket led to my passion of metal sculpting.

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During the early stages of my childhood and living in what was considered a third world country, necessity was as much a part of our daily lives as oxygen.  During those days, I remember that sometimes the electricity would be off for periods on end.  When that occurred, mom would light candles on the kitchen table. As children, me and my siblings would sit around the table lit with candles in the middle. As the wax would melted down the sides of the candles, I would pinch chunks of the still warm melted wax and mold it into tiny bird or dove forms. Thus arose the beginning of my fascination and love for creativity.

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After 38 years of residing in Canada, a world of unlimited opportunity and my source of gratefulness for the life that I have today, my wife fell in love with my birth place and we decided to move to São Miguel island,in the archipelago of Azores, Portugal.  We purchased a small tourist resort, and for the last 14 years I have been applying my creativity mostly in the beautiful sculpture garden that exists today.  This has become my home, my daily inspiration, and my studio. 

EXHIBITIONS

2004       “Echoes Through Time…2004”, Sculptors’ Association of Alberta,                     

                Muttart Conservatory, Edmonton, Alberta

                “An Exhibit of Sculpture” by the Three Sixty Expressionists,

                 Art Beat Gallery and Frame, St. Albert, Alberta

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2003       Selected Works by the Sculptors’ Association of Alberta,

                Art Beat Gallery and Frame, St. Albert, Alberta

               “Elemental”, Sculptors’ Association of Alberta,

               Muttart Conservatory, Edmonton, Alberta

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2003       “Metal Dance”, Donalda Community Arts Society, Donalda, Alberta

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2002       “Fusion II: Form and Flora…2002”, Sculptors’ Association of Alberta,

                Muttart Conservatory, Edmonton, Alberta

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2002       “Freedom and Flight”, (Solo Exhibit) Art Beat Gallery and Frame, St. Albert, Alberta

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2001       “Fusion I: Form and Flora…2001”, Sculptors’ Association of Alberta,

                Muttart Conservatory, Edmonton, Alberta

                “Sculpture: An Intimate Conversation”, Sculptors’ Association of Alberta,

                Mcmullen Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta