Principals of Tradition

Sculpture No.251_ Principals of Tradition / Battle of the Buldge

The work samples attached are an explosive focus on numerous dimensions that are easily drawn from notions of “UNAMERICAN”.

I feel it important to tell you a little about the background of this work selection. This series started as a performance, moved through video, into photography, and was completed as sculpture.

The sculpture is empowered by layers of metaphor and represents the social moral changes we face as a country.  

The process began in the actions of shooting firearms at precious objects (silver settings) to intentionally create a forceful tear in the metal, exposing sharp edges and the interior of the object. The tears are difficult – showing the physicality some displaced people are living, separated from family and culture and being judged as objects. 

After, I assembled the shot silver piece by supporting it with common household recycled objects that are the place setting to on a veritable table of visual dialog to be digested by the onlooker.

The work intends to stimulate pause, empathy, and the hope of a silver lining ending.

B. A Rolling Story

An oak tree stands, quietly growing for many years on the forest floor until one-day large machines come screaming slashing and cutting, changing their long-standing grove. The trees become raw material harvested to commerce and sold for market value. Once the trees are processed- A common rolling pin born -to be sold and shipped back across the country to then spend a 30-year career, making meals for 130 children two times a day in a small upstate NY school town called Queensbury nestled in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains of NY.

Years come and go as do recipes, time slips on and workers roll miles of experiences past the smooth oak surface, as the human hand touches the shapely handles with expression and pressure creating miles of surface between human object and atmosphere. All the while, conversations blair of personal and relevant nature between workers as the pin quietly fulfills its daily chore. The food offers a platform of energy for young people in the upcoming generations.  The object’s memory rolling thirty years part to a bigger picture and gone unnoticed. 

A worker finds the rolling pin discarded and takes it homes thinking she would add it to her summer garage sale, that never happens. The rolling pin sits in a garage entrance quietly awaiting its fate. The cafeteria worker throws a taco party and an artist is invited. The artist is working on a series that incorporates objects of daily service into a sculpture that create visual statements on what she sees.

And walla the rolling pin!

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