My name is Al, and I am a multidisciplinary designer and artist operating at the intersection of craft, archi­tecture, landscape, and computation. I am originally from Des Moines, Iowa, but was raised in the moun­tains and badlands of Alberta. My interest in making started from an early age, where I grew up woodwork­ing with my dad. This interest became more focused when I chose to take up architecture as a discipline – leading me away from the beautiful skies of Alberta to the pastel coastlines of Nova Scotia. During my studies at Dalhousie and through partnerships with NSCAD, I discovered a deep interest in clay as a working medium.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I believe that matter and its forces fundamentally engage and transform life. Wind weathers rock, water carries particulate, and edges allow for the accumu­lation of the clay we use to form our artefacts and architecture. As such, I tend to focus on working ‘with’ the matter and forces at hand so that the potential for emergence, chaos, and spontaneity can be leveraged in meaningful ways. As of late, I have been working with machines, in dialogue with material landscapes, to see how agency, subjectivity, animacy, and materi­als can be coalesced into emergent forms.

October 2021 – March 2022