MIKE: "The first remembrance I have of creating art was when I was 8 years old. I was upstairs in my grandfather's house in Chicago and I shared a room with my two brothers, a little room under a roof that was slanted. Every day after school what really inspired me was the way the light came into the window at about 4 o'clock. It was very cozy, and I would sit there and draw. I don't remember what I drew but I remember what a great feeling it was. I never thought it would be my occupation. There was something in me that loved the creative process, though, and I've never lost that over the years. I'll be 60 this July.

"I started fooling around with wood when I was about 22. My best friend then -- and he's still my best friend -- had a boutique. I worked there during the day, and when I went home in the evening, I would carve wood with very simple tools. I was doing that for a little while when I met a fellow who graduated from the art institute for wood carving. I went to his studio, and it was the same feeling that I had when I was 8 years old at my grandfather's. Light was coming in the windows of this basement shop he had, with all these chisels lying around; he was using pine and there was the smell of the wood. It all just clicked in my head, and I said, 'This is ME!' So I went out and bought more professional chisels and tools and started making some funky stuff. A year went by and I had finished some pieces. I put them on the shelves at the boutique and a fellow came in and bought three of them. I made $900; I took the money and went to Europe with two friends. We put in a hundred bucks apiece to buy an old van and we drove to Afghanistan. We sold the van there, and took buses and trains to India. I spent five-and-a-half months over there, and that whole time being so far away from home, thinking about the work, it all came to me that when I got back, [art] is what I am going to do. That was 35 years ago.

"I wanted to paint for years so I started in 1990 in between sculpting wood. When a piece is finished, I'm actually let down because I love the process so much. I am a direct carver. I use very few power tools. The process starts by roughing out the piece in a very geometrical form with handsaws and chisels, then slowly refining with smaller chisels, knifes, rasps, files, and different grits or sandpaper. I finish my sculptures with natural shellac, each coat hand-rubbed until I arrive at the desired polish. When I moved to Sedona I discovered Alligator Juniper, a wood indigenous to northern Arizona. I also use mahogany, jelutong from Indonesia, coco bolo from Costa Rica and yellow cedar from Alaska.

"When I look at my portfolio, I am reminded of the intensity that went into my work at so many different periods of time, and the creative problems that I had to overcome along the way. I'd like to think that some of this energy has been captured in my work so that others can feel it too."