Tree of Life installation

Pyroglyph on Sycamore bark, mounted on pine board, 10'x16'x1", 2026, NFS

I create simple diagrams of the most cardinal elements of life, what turned out to be primary constructs of civilization. This site-specific installation highlights my series of pyroglyphs consisting of a mural-sized painting onto which I hung many of my bark art Pyroglyphs on the “branches” and “trunk."

Over 50 years of practice, my interest is a state of mind, an emotion, a sensation. The subject and medium follow. Delving into a new medium is invigorating, an opportunity to explore its inherent nuances and intimacies; like exploring a new landscape or partner. Jung wrote on what turned into a life-long process for me, “Through active imagination the image is imprinted on the psychic essence of personality with the purpose of transformation.” My first decades were foundational, the middle transformative, and the recent decades celebratory.

Towner is an artist and Creative Director of Towner Arts Consulting and former Dean of Art at Endicott College. He held appointments at the University of Iowa, St. Ambrose, Saint Mary’s, Ohio University, and Wayne State University, and positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Craft Museum, and Figge Museum. He earned an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BA from Columbia College Chicago, with further study at ALI-ABA, ICP, VSW, and the Met. He has exhibited extensively in NYC metro Boston, nationally, and now the PNW.