Still
STILL // 2018
Tramping around neighborhoods with an eye to the gutter; scanning the sides of trails looking for Mother Nature’s castoffs; poking through the overstuffed bins of thrift shops. I am drawn to the potential — and the quiet persistence — of the things we discard. Objects that still remain and that have remained still, until rediscovered. Their “unfinished narratives,” as artist Cornelia Parker says, wink at me and hint that a new ending might be possible.
Lately I have been foraging in abandoned town dumps near my home. I take secret pleasure in spotting the possibilities within the century-old remnants of long-gone households. The domestic objects I find are broken: bits and shards of glass, pottery and metal. I investigate their physical nature, isolate a defining characteristic, and then conduct experiments with new shapes to re-animate something of their native purpose or form.
We live in a broken time: a fractured political system and a divided country; topsy-turvy weather and an unstable climate. I yearn to make it whole again, so I go home, figuratively, to the domestic discards of an earlier time. I bring the pieces into my own home, washing them in our kitchen sink, sorting them in the studio, and putting them “back” together into something new. I have no illusions that this practice can reshape our world; the forces at play are beyond my hand. But this re-organizing of the domestic landscape contains a personal alchemy: through this response I am able to process the big emotions that accompany a changing planet. And this, in however small a way, puts my world back together.
In this work, I count Tara Donovan, Andy Goldsworthy, the aforementioned Cornelia Parker and Aspen’s own Freddie “The King of the Dump” Fisher as influences. Their instincts, process and craft are a constant inspiration.