"I started with the issue of the way in which individuals have a sort of disconnect from the larger systems that we vote, and the way that we have these big systems... Bill Babbitt, for example, voted in favor of the policy of capital punishment in the state of California that executed his brother. Thinking about how individuals and larger systems work has been a major part of my teaching, both in public art and sculpture, how do we relate to individuals creating and these larger systems, and the relationship between that and politics, and the fact that we're all connected to the system.
"I feel like UCSC students have a real investment in those issues anyway. We have an incredibly conscious community of people who have chosen to come to this campus, because they love natural beauty, they are often invested in the world around them. One of the exciting things I get to do in my teaching is to tease out these relationships for them..."