Shawn Porter knows materials and how to use them, but in art, he says, the idea comes first.

Porter has always worked with his hands. He says he doesn't really understand something unless he can see the mechanics of it and his mind can communicate with his hands. School, obviously, held little interest for him. He grew up in Lehi, Utah, where at eighteen he got a job in a cabinet shop working on high-end architectural fixtures. His desire to leave the state and see the world caught up with him one day while he was sitting in an unemployment line. He joined the Navy, where he spent three years on a salvage ship, picking up wrecked aircraft, towing ships and submarines, and debeaching ships run aground. His hands learned a whole new set of skills and became familiar with new material; and he enjoyed the life experience, seeing cultures and places in the Pacific few get to see: "The little cartoon of the two guys sitting on a sandbar with the palm tree," he says, "The sandbar, it really exists, I've seen it."

When he came back to Utah -- he missed the mountains, the desert and the Great Salt Lake -- he returned to carpentry, but in its rougher form: building homes from the foundation up, he added electrical and plumbing skills to his set. He returned to fine carpentry when he got a job building furniture with Jeff Kobay.

The artistic side of working with Kobay peaked Porter's interest in art and when he saw a job at the University of Utah's art department he jumped at the opportunity. "I wanted to expose myself to [art] more and really immerse myself in it, see what it's like from the inside."