As a young man growing up in Florida, Robert Birbeck dreamed of being an architectural draftsman and yachtsman.  He loved boats and says he literally grew up in boat yards in the Florida Keys.  A random twist of fate had him studying art instead, and he found himself enjoying the carefree life of a bohemian, living on his boat, drawing, sailing, and "having a good time".  He would live in artist colonies wherever he found them, making just enough money to pay his bills, care for his boat, replenish his art supplies, and then sail on to the next port.  He lived from boat to artist colony through the seventies and mid-eighties, enjoying the warm weather and carefree life, not even owning a pair of long pants or dress shoes, painting and drawing all the while, mostly nudes and portraits.  He wasn't earning big money but his art was continually selling and his reputation as an accomplished artist was growing.

       It  was on a trip north, in summer of course, that he met the woman who would be his inspiration and change the course of his life.  The year was 1984, the location Woodstock, NY.  It was while working a part-time job that he met Karin.  "She asked me out to dinner one night", he recalls, "and we never separated after that."  Karin became more than his soulmate and his wife.  She gave him direction and set his compass, both personally and professionally.  He painted her nude and says most of his early work was of her.

       For the next several years, Birbeck worked at his art everyday and his stature as a figurative and portrait painter grew.  The drive to produce and perfect began to overwhelm him.  "I was burnt out,"  he says of that period, "and driving Karin crazy."  They were in Provincetown and Karin recommended that he take a series of classes on modelling in clay.  "I took the classes and never looked back.  Within a year I was sculpting full time.  I went from painting nudes to sculpting nudes."  Claw chisels, pointers, filers, heavy raspers and sandpapers replaced brushes and paints and canvas.  Interestingly, as his sculptural medium of choice was wood or stone, so many of the same tactile and technical disciplines are employed in both wood sculpting and boat building.  Thus began the career of a wildly talented sculptor, while at the same time ironically returning him full circle to his roots and first love, boats.

      Birbeck works in many kinds of wood and stone including oak, mahogany, lindenwood, maple, sandstone and limestone.  His figures are elegant,  whimsical, and extraordinarily beautifully crafted.  Carved from one piece, the wood sculptures are exquisitely shaped and polished so that the figures have a lustrous color and sheen.  In his "red shoes" series, which are a unique Birbeck signature, the bright red high heels add a bit of humor and sass which is unexpected and wholly original.  Inspired by primitive African and pre-Colombian sculpture as well as Modigliani and Brancussi, Birbeck creates fleshy "goddesses", recalling a more generous, baroque sense of beauty.  "All my goddesses are full-bodied and grand."

     Robert Birbeck's work has been chosen for numerous prestigious juried exhibitions and is included in private and public collections throughout the United States and England.  He and Karin live winters in Vermont and summers in Provincetown.