Martin Puryear

“At a certain point, I just put the building and the art impulse together. I decided that building was a legitimate way to make sculpture.”

“The fire was followed by a period of grieving and then by an incredible lightness, freedom, and mobility.”

“The site I landed on feels much more isolated than it really is; it's almost magical. Within its limited radius, there was a whole range of the local ecology.”

“I was never interested in making cool, distilled, pure objects.”

“The work is flowing from an inner knowing of how things really are.”

“I realized it wasn't necessary to work in the traditional methods of carving and casting.”

“Although idea and form are ultimately paramount in my work, so too are chance, accident, and rawness.”

“I think of moving as a kind of saving grace.”

“I felt it was part of the spirit of the whole program to do more than simply make an object.”