Statement:

There is an innate primal urgency that makes street art in all it's iterations so influential and relevant. A process of self actualization, to leave your mark on the world with nothing but your imagination and a can of spray paint, is as appealing today as it would have been to a primitive artist ten thousand years ago. This force that is street art, is influenced by, and in turn, influences all that it comes into contact with; anime, fashion, cinema, music, tattoos, and of course aerosol art. Even toys.

But hold on a minute, I'm a stone cutter. From the perspective of street art, I'm getting the distinct impression that my chosen medium may now be considered irrelevant. A medium better suited to the pedestals of museums and stuffy galleries.

I began to wonder; imbued with that same primal urgency, that innate desire to leave a mark, would it be possible to make stone relevant again?

In order to express in a spontaneous manner, I needed a way to sketch directly in stone. My solution was ″the boulder head″. Pick up a random worthless stone from the side of the road, take it back to the studio and just start cutting with no agenda in mind. Like sketching with charcoal or watercolors, many were abject failures, but with time something very interesting began to emerge.

Miraculously, while I was cutting, exciting fresh ideas began to flow, characters and personalities began to reveal themselves. All of the advanced skills in stone work I had previously acquired, came streaming forward to inform this impetuous self expression. Creating an entirely new language with its own unique vocabulary.

I feel at this stage, I have only just begun to explore this compelling new language that I call ″Neolithic Toys″.

Bio:

Dughlas James was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He emigrated to the US at an early age. As a young adult, working with a number of artisans in Santa Fe NM, he acquired skills as a lapidary and silversmith. This basic skill set led to a successful career as a freelance designer and model maker for the fine jewelry industry in Los Angeles, CA and Phoenix, AZ.

Dughlas continues to explore stone cutting as a medium of artistic expression. He now lives and works in the foothills of the Gila Mountains in southwestern New Mexico, in the U.S.