After 8 years in the USCG, the University of Notre Dame and a course at the Shelter Institute in Bath, ME, I spent 25 years building and renovating rural and urban homes using primarily recycled materials. In 1993 I met my partner of 27 years, Patty Baldwin. Patty is an artist with a Masters Degree from Cranbrook. She has shared her vision, experience and knowledge with me unselfishly as I've found my way searching the Lake Erie shoreline for unique pieces of driftwood which become, with varying degrees of manipulation, a myriad of real and imagined life forms. The process fulfills my need for connection to the earth; mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.