Before Knowles touches clay, he feels the rhythm in sketches, textures, and raw materials. This narrative exploration becomes a dance captured in small drawings that inspire the larger work to come. Formally trained with a Bachelor of Arts from Yale in 1966, he was Scholar of the House in Sculpture. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969. His principal teachers were Neil Welliver and Robert Engman. Today, he balances seasoned virtuosity with an improvisational spirit, his work resonating with the beat of structure and flow.