Paul DeHaven

I am influenced by Hawaiian flora and marine life- the riot of color, the diversity of shape and the primal beauty I see in Hawaii. My art is my path back to this tropical Eden, by recreating through sculpture the plants and animals of those warm waters and lush forests.

I transform hard and flat into curved and flowing. What begins as plain metal sheet or rod embodies the expression of what is to be. And though my hands move and shape the raw material, the medium determines where we go and where we end. The project takes on its own dynamic and direction, and I am as much fellow traveler as I am director of the work.

I spent most of my adult life as a father, a martial artist, an Aerospace Quality Engineer, and until recently, not noticeably an artist.

Fatherhood teaches many, many things. Two things I learned are: expect the unexpected, and recognize that sometimes boundaries are meant to be crossed.

Martial arts also teaches many things. Two things I learned are discipline to persevere, and to always seek the way to peace.

Aerospace engineering… too many things to even list but essentially, I learned how things go together and how they work (or don’t work) together. Space is an unforgiving environment and to send things there is one of the most challenging of human endeavors. A great deal has to go right.

I have become familiar with and in some cases expert in technologies, processes and procedures governing hardware that once deployed, can never be repaired. Technologies that most people are unaware of yet affect many aspects of everyday life. Very sophisticated, sometimes extremely expensive, and not the environment where you would expect to find artistic expression or inspiration but I’ve learned that life is like that- you find inspiration and opportunity in the most unusual or unlikely places.

Somewhere on this journey I began to feel there was something that I needed to be doing but seemed to have no tangible foundation. Like a feeling one tries to explain but can’t find the right words for, but something that has to come out. And then it started.