Mark Tanabe lives north of New York City and creates sculptures from pieces of wood that he finds drifting in the nearby Hudson River.

He himself has drifted in many currents. In 1968 he left his native Japan to to become a sailor in New Caledonia. He then decided to go to Paris, where he enrolled in the Sorbonne and began playing trumpet. During this time he also hitchhiked to Morocco, Italy, England, and Finland.

He returned to Japan to do his obligatory military service in 1973-4. In 1975 he moved to Ohio and got his green card. He pursued painting and worked in restaurants to support himself. In 1983 he moved to New York City and from there to Westchester county, by the Hudson, where he lives and works today. (You can contact him by phone or mail; he does not own a computer).

Tanabe's way of making sculpture begins in meditation. He sits by the river and waits for pieces of driftwood to float by, pieces that have been worn smooth by time and tide. If a shape interests him, it might end up in one of his constructions, part of a dialogue between wood and metal, between the found object and the sought-after object, between the haphazard accidents of time and the artist’s need for aesthetic order. Somehow, Tanabe manages to produce artwork remarkable for its warmth and clarity.