Head of an Elder, 2020
72in. x 24in. x 24in.
(see material list at bottom of page)
Head of an Elder, 2020
72in. x 24in. x 24in.
i. human skull rendered in pine from NYC DOT infrastructure project site (Ridgewood, Queens, NY), carved using anonymized CT scan data from NIH online cancer imaging archive (imaging.cancer.gov)
ii. “excavated vintage human glass eyes age 1890 Lauscha Mueller – Uri German A 3800” purchased from “sir_flacon” who notes “they where (sic) found while digging in factory yard ruins in Limbach in Thuringia Germany” (Nürnberg, Germany)
iii. eyelashes and eyebrows from braided copper wire from destroyed/discarded headphones and electrical wire found on street (Ridgewood, Queens, NY) with plumbing solder from MFTA (Long Island City Queens, NY)
iv. lips and nose cast from tin smelted from pewter steins and tableware found in box on street after neighbor passed (Ridgewood, Queens, NY) and copper foil gifted by former studio mate who said she purchased it at P&T Surplus a decade earlier (Kingston, NY)
v. teeth carved from American Bison horn fragments salvaged from commemorative pens collected from pawn shops (Tucson, AZ)
vi. hair from “Yellow Brass Box Chain” deadstock footage & jewelry findings from closeout wholesale dealer ‘Wolf E Myrow’ (Providence, RI)
vii. facial reconstruction from 420-million-year-old carbonate sedimentary rock from Silurian dolomite limestone collected from Upper Peninsula portion of the Niagara Escarpment formation (Cedarville, MI)
viii. aluminum expanded security mesh from abandoned ‘Mechanical Fabric Company’ mill building (Providence, RI)
ix. coal & graphite dust from freight-loss material collected at CSX switching yard (Grafton, WV)
x. “WEST SYSTEM #105-B Epoxy Resin & #205-B Fast Hardener” purchased from West Marine (Warwick, RI)
xi. “MIXOL #10 Red” multipurpose tinting paste purchased from Compleat Sculptor (Manhattan, NY) and “SO-Strong™ white liquid urethane colorant” purchased from RISD 3D Store (Providence, RI)
xii. stainless steel, zinc-coated, and copper fasteners from mason jars purchased at estate sale (Truro, MA)
xiii. brass fasteners salvaged from VDOT modeling workshop liquidation (Richmond, VA)
xiv. “#10 0.5-inch Round Nylon Spacers” purchased from Grainger (Maspeth, Queens, NY)
xv. “#8 Zinc Flat Washers” purchased from Home Depot (Cranston, RI)
xvi. “#8 x 2 in. Star Drive Trim-Head Finish Screws” purchased from Home Depot (Maspeth, Queens, NY)
xvii. aluminum stock purchased in bulk at auction from machine shop closing inventory liquidation (Edison NJ)
xviii. ‘4-40 .5-inch 18-8 Stainless Steel Socket Head Cap Screws’ purchased from Grainger (Maspeth, Queens, NY)
xix. ‘8-32 1-inch 18-8 Stainless Steel Socket Head Cap Screws’ purchased from Grainger (Maspeth, Queens, NY)
xx. ‘10-24 1.25-inch 18-8 Stainless Steel Socket Head Cap Screws’ purchased from Grainger (Maspeth, Queens, NY)
xxi. copper jewelry wire from closeout wholesale dealer ‘Wolf E Myrow’ (Providence, RI)
xxii. tin foil from takeout lunch meal (Ridgewood, Queens, NY)
xxiii. J-chain from salvage fluorescent drop-ceiling fixtures sourced from craigslist post (Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY)
xxiv. painted steel pipe from satellite antennae array from residential demolition (Ridgewood, Queens, NY)
xxv. PVC tubing (origin unknown)
xxvi. aluminum pipe hardware (origin forgotten)
xxvii. “1/2- 1-¼ in. Stainless Steel Hose Clamps” purchased from Home Depot (Maspeth, Queens, NY)
xxviii. travertine limestone countertop cutoffs donated by landlord, left over after apartment development project (Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY)
xxix. “Rockite Anchoring Cement Gray” purchased from David at Platz True Value Hardware (Ridgewood, Queens, NY)
xxx. casts of polystyrene packaging inserts salvaged from recycling bins (Ridgewood, Queens NY)
xxxi. hydraulic cement donated by landlord, left over after building development project (Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY)
xxxii. furniture sliders reclaimed from broken Ikea entertainment center found on street (East Williamsburg, Queens, NY)
“the ground”
This was a low year. A year spent looking at the ground. A year spent walking, outdoors, alone or with others. Spent looking at the sidewalk, at the things people were throwing away. This was a year spent trying to find the value in the least of what we had, of what we had been taking for granted. This was a year I spent in part by visiting every major cemetery in the 5 boroughs of New York City, where I live. This was a year I also spent digging in the ground at various informal archeological sites across the city; from Dead Horse Bay to municipal construction sites after-hours.
“the ground'“ is a years-long sculptural body of work begun in the summer of 2020 that consists of a large scale sculptural installation exploring grief, public spaces, and reclaiming the value of things we’ve thrown away. Through this project, I have been constructing a funerary monument to late-stage American capitalism using material reclaimed and salvaged from shuttered retail businesses, industry, and the consumer recycling stream, along with imagined portraits and partial figures made from donated medical scans of individuals suffering from manufacturing and industry-related cancers.
This current body of work is based in deep research into the monuments of mourning and memorialization across the American landscape. It is also based in deep research of the history of American industry and resource extraction. It is also an exploration of the production of commercial ‘value’ and the physical and spiritual cost of that ‘value’. The work in this project is made of reclaimed material collected from the street, sidewalks, side-yards, alleys, and other interstitial public spaces of the cities of the American northeast during the coronavirus pandemic. Because of this shared origin, the conditions of the physical, social, and economic landscape of a late-stage capitalist American metropolis inflect the material, and thus content of the work; loss, mourning, decay, resourcefulness, and scrapping fragments together in the face of failing systems.
Product-display stands, shelving, and countertops from pandemic-shuttered retail businesses. Copper refrigerant tubing salvaged from discarded AC units and broken refrigerators left under highway overpasses. Stranded wire from broken earbuds and shattered electronics. Tile and masonry fragments from building demolitions. Ceramic shards from 150-year-old municipal dumping sites. 420-million-year-old fossil lime cement from a decommissioned mine that supplied the material for the base of the Statue of Liberty. These irreducible material fragments, their history, and their poetics, are the conceptual and emotional center of this exhibition.
These reclaimed materials are used to compose funerary monuments for the public who have been irreparably harmed by systems of commerce. Imagined portraiture is made using a DIY forensic facial reconstruction technique enacted on anonymized skulls rendered from an online cancer imaging database of CT scans. A pair of legs is cast in a faux terrazzo using reclaimed cement and the contents of boxes left on the curb from when a neighbor passed away. A sarcophagus is made using a discarded mini fridge and cement casts of Styrofoam packing inserts collected from neighborhood recycling, covered in mosaics using tile and 19th ce. ceramic fragments dug up from the incidental archaeological site of a municipal sewage work site. A statue of a priest giving sacrament is made from salvaged refrigerator tubing and a full quarantine years’ worth of chewing gum. The thing held in common by all of the physical elements of the exhibition is that I could only collect them because no one else felt they had any remaining value. This is the liberatory quality we can look for in the material of waste streams. This work proposes that what has been drained of its worth within a capitalist framework now affords the opportunity to be reimagined and reused as something of a radically different order, something that speaks of elegy, care, and remembrance.