The 1980’s started out with a move from Missoula, Montana, where I  taught ceramics, to Norman, Oklahoma where I would teach Sculpture at the University of Oklahoma. In Norman I had a studio at “North Base”, a decommissioned  World War II airbase owned  by the University. That is where I really worked on the shoe pieces through 1984. Then I took a couple of years off and lived in the lower East Side of NYC, 1985-86. The studio in New York is where the paper shell works I was doing, including the $1 bill work, really took off. So in 1988, having exhausted my retirement account and having resigned my second tenured position at the University of Oklahoma, I applied for jobs and got a position at the University of Texas at San Antonio which started in 1988 and continues today.

After 1985, I began to work with Harry Geffert at the Green Mountain Foundry in Crowley Texas to cast bronze. During 1988, I had an incredible residency at the Arts Industry Program of the Kohler Company and the John Michael Kohler Art Center, in Sheboygan Wisconsin. That is where I made my first cast iron works.