Rand first began to understand the impact that art would have on his life when he was given a
set of watercolors and started painting the islands and water of Southeast Alaska. Later, while
studying literature and science at Western Washington University he was fascinated by the
collection of outdoor sculpture on campus, including extraordinary works by contemporary
masters in fabricated steel and stone. These early influences have never left him. He has
lived all over the northwest, from Oregon to Alaska. He has worked as a potter’s apprentice,
an orchardist, a printer, a software maker, a metalworker, and a writer. Throughout his life the
study and creation of art has been the one constant.
All these sources have come together at his studio outside Bend to support his work in
painting and metal sculpture. Rand works with oil, acrylic, charcoal, crayon, wax, steel, and
wood. The sweep of motion in space from a sculpture can become a gesture in charcoal on a
painting. Each provides inspiration for the other and together they create a conversation that
moves the work forward.