Time Series
I am not sure if everyone views time the same way I do. My life is divided between strictly controlled time and moments of opportunity. I regiment my time so that when I have the small beautiful occasion to fritter away time I am able to so with less consequence, a sort of a check and balance system.
For my purposes, time has become the vehicle through which I am able to experience everything. I see time as a series of moments. These moments measure slowly and others advance extremely fast. I embrace all of these speeds, while searching for the point of repose. I can misplace myself in physical labor or feel time creep by while watching a sunset.
“I have adjusted the way I navigate through time”.
I have stepped outside my common notions of time; I have accepted and redefined the way that I view my life and move through time. I’m concerned that many people have not made this decision and because of this unwillingness to decide, they opt for the circumstance to take charge. By investigating the limits of time, I am better able to make use of it. I make allowances for moments of reflection by creating spaces in a day, a week, a month, a year and a lifetime for these events to occur.
Spring 2007
Time
I look at the clock at my bedside and it reads 11:03 pm. I pick up my book of fiction and begin to read. The story flows well and I am engrossed. Just as I get into the meat of the story and the characters begin to develop, I look up and the clock reads 2:30 am. It seems like I just began reading. How is it that I have been reading that long?
I have lost my driver’s license and I am at the DMV. The lady behind the counter has handed me the form to fill out, told me where to sit, and said she’d call me up in a few minutes; it is now 2pm. I finish the form, twiddle in my chair, and watch the standard-issue clock on the left wall. The minute hand appears to be stuck. I feel as though I’ve already waited fifteen minutes, but it has only been 90 seconds.
What is it in our makeup that makes time move the way that it does? According to physics, there is no specific arrow or duration of time. Our human mind sets up these delineations in a way to help us order our world. If we did not have this order, we would go mad, so our brain is doing us a favor. But is there a way we can see through some of this human construction of time to discover what real duration might look like?
Abstract concepts: Effort--Struggle--Redeemability--Physicality--Impossible Tasks-- Value--Time Servanthood--Leadership--Fatherhood--Pedagogy--Failure--Success Media: Clay--Wood--Metal--Earthwork--Intallation--Performance--Process--Time--Memory--Temperature--Environment--etc...
Influences: William Kentridge, Walter McConnell, Andy Goldsworthy, Stephen Hendee, Beth Cavener Stichter
Writers: Walter Benjamin, Dave Hickey, Pam Longobardi, Adelheid Mers, Charles Sanders Peirce, Wolfgang Welsch
Statement 2004
My artwork begins by asking specific questions; in an effort to understand first hand, abstract concepts. Such as: what is a pound? How do you show struggle? Is effort redeemable? What does it mean to be a father? These questions start me on a search for the answers. I explore different mediums to find out, which will best answer each individual question. When I pick a process I then set up tasks that will push my medium and myself to their limits. This could be accomplished in the form of physical struggle, time base, process piece, limited palettes, impossible tasks, etc... Through these efforts the artwork transcends the medium and begins to answer the abstract questions with concrete answers.
One of the series that I am currently working in involves wet clay installations inspired originally by works of Walter McConnell and Andy Goldsworthy. I build large wood and lathe structures to support the weight of wet clay on walls, windows, around corners, and other areas. I then apply the clay using a hand patting technique that retains the marks of my fingers and hands. The rough textured surface holds a strong reference to the body. The fourth dimension of this series is in the drying process. Depending on the size of the structure and the thickness of the clay it will dry at various speeds. As the clay dries it shrinks and pulls at the internal structures. The shrinking forces the clay back into the original hand patted shape that was applied, giving it a sense of history. As you look at the structure you see every individual piece of clay that was applied surrounded by a crack. The pulling on the structure warps the lathe, flares the clay, and sometimes falls away creating unique compositions.
My new experiments with this wet clay series start with getting rid of the structures for support and reducing the scale to medium to small canvasses. By working this way the clay dries and cracks in the same ways, but without the structure the clay falls away. The clay leaves residues and marks as a history of its existence on the surface. I am currently working with imagery under and over the clay print. I am interested in what the process reveals and conceals of the imagery, and how that conceptually relates to the process. These new ways of working have transformed the medium of ceramics into a different language. I am beginning to learn this language and apply it in my work.