There is a song by the Eels called railroad man and in this song Mark Oliver Everett laments days gone by with the words "everything's so fast now, this train is just to slow". Time seems to be moving faster, we are evolving at a such a rate that we have moved on to the next big thing before we have understood the current thing, and forgotten the important thing. As a species we have always tried to find distractions from our existence, and these distractions turn out to be what defines our existence. Whether you are a workaholic, alcoholic or sexaholic, whether you play for the NFL the LFL or NRA our hobbies and vocations are intricately designed distractions which have become a necessity to survive long enough to even contemplate our existence. 
The work and especially the material choices reflects a refusal to move forward. In many ways I have done this in my life, some have called it stubbornness. By using materials that are readily available and practices that could be considered primitive these works speak to the viewer as an equal. There vaguely figurative nature hint at their meaning and their interactions with one another create silent dialogues that have not been recorded. As the artist it is hard to take the personal out of the work but I feel that it is my job to be allusive, to not lead you to water, and yours to question. Does the work have its own meaning or is the meaning projected on to it by the viewer and his or her or its preconceived notions about art and life? Is it just something else to look at, to distract us from our existence? Your first Question should be, does there even need to be a meaning? These and other ontological questions will not be answered in fact I don't want answers I would rather the world and my life to be filled with wonder. This may be why some of the pieces have a whimsical side, the playful arrangement  and manipulation of objects to design a balanced composition. But this whimsy never completely masks the dark nature of our world.     

When I was an undergrad in NC I was often criticized by me professors for seemingly slapping shit together at the last minute. They demanded to judge the work not on its formal merits alone but by the amount of time it took to make. I have a hard time understanding this mentality: How does time have anything to do with quality. In any other field proficiency is lauded as a great quality ( I am in no way claiming to be proficient ) the doctor who can perform a task in less time, the checker at the grocery who checks faster are all rewarded with praise. But ART for some fucking reason should be as miserably long a process as one can make it. 
To answer the question " How long did that take?" I began to dissect my process of making. My first realization was that the finished pieces often took little or no time to assemble it was the acquiring, sorting, qualifying, modifying and general fucking around with the individual objects which make up finished piece that took the most time. I have spent thousands of hours in the last few years picking up garbage, compulsively going to thrift stores, organizing scraps of wood, collecting and classifying objects and it is this that constitutes my commitment to my art. The moment when it all just falls into place is the reward I strive for through my compulsion to collect. 
My second realization was that I have been collecting and classifying objects my whole life. So to you people out there who can't understand and must qualify all things by the time it takes to make them I answer your question 
"How long did that take" 
It took my whole fucking life