About Jack Reed

My art comes from three parts of my life experience: woodworking, woodcarving, and painting.

My grandfather and father made things out of wood. I grew up in a home with many tools. If I wanted something, I made it. I love making things out of wood.

One day I picked up a stick and began whittling with a knife. Over time, I whittled bigger and bigger pieces of wood and my carving tools became more complex. I love to carve wood.

My interest in painting began with my exposure to abstract expressionism. I was always drawn to the painterly abstraction, especially the three-dimensional globs and drips of paint. I love to paint.

My art is made in three phases: construction, destruction, and painting.

I use the tools of the cabinetmaker to bring together planks of cedar wood. The resulting construction is angular, man-made.

I then completely alter the piece with the tools of the woodcarver. The carving is deliberately random. The linear nature of the original construction is transformed.

The painting phase begins as most painters begin, looking at a blank canvas. But my canvas is a three-dimensional wood sculpture. The construction and carving phases are fairly deliberate, but the color phase is more spontaneous. Many layers of transparent acrylic paint are applied until I like what I see. After several coats of varnish the piece is finished.

Hung on a wall it is not just a construction, not just a sculpture, and not just a painting. It is, I believe, a unique art form.