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"Will Clift: Gesture in Balance," THE Magazine, December 2006 (.PDF file, 500 KB)

"Graceful Gestures," Journal North, October 27, 2006 (.PDF file, 80 KB)

"Photographic reproductions cannot begin to capture the awesome effect of Will Clift's fragile, willowy sculptures... the forms are distinguished most by their grace and animation, much like drawings or minimalist paintings with a few elegant sweeps of paint. With a single line he can convey movement and tension... The resulting sculptures are simultaneously powerful and fragile; thrilling, yet entirely serene."

       - Dottie Indyke, ARTnews Magazine, January 2004    (full ARTnews review)

"How can they stand up? How can they be so alive? Spontaneous questions arise when people first set eyes on Will Clift's sculptures, each animated by its own soaring life."

       - Michael More, Albuquerque Journal, September 12, 2003

"Clift assembles his pieces without nails or glue into perfectly balanced calligraphic gestures. These two-dimensional drawings in space create beautifully nuanced shadows that appear extremely three-dimensional. The 'volume' of the shadows gives the works incredible energy, yet at the same time enhances the pensive atmosphere created by the pieces themselves. Matisse once said, 'A drawing must have a power of expansion which can bring to life the shape that surrounds it.'"

        - Susanna Carlisle, THE Magazine, November 2003

"Will Clift explores the wonder of balance in his own way: a series of elegant wood sculptures. In each piece the slender parts, poised one against another, proceed into the air from the tentative foundation of a tiny base... Clift often starts out with a drawing that he modifies over time. At other times, the creation of a piece is akin to improvisation. 'When I'm in my shop with my hands dirty is when a lot of the development of the piece happens,' he explained. 'Otherwise, it's a little doodle, a pencil sketch I may do from the smallest impetus of an idea when I'm doing other things.'"

       - Paul Weideman, The New Mexican, September 12, 2003

" Will Clift's objects walk a fine line , exploring and refining the boundary between three-dimensional sculpture and two-dimensional drawing. In a delicate balancing act, their arcing arabesques evoke the contours of landscapes or human forms, yet their open-ended silhouettes, in which form and void are conjoined, avoid definitive delineation. Instead, their intersecting and tapering lines, like branches blown by the wind, animate the surrounding space and make manifest the motion that is everywhere present."

       - Timothy Anglin Burgard,    Curator of American Art,   Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco