The ever challenging idea of making the “impossible object”. Taking something which is seemingly permanent and making it impermanent. Exploiting object for its sound and transformation over expedited time. Pulverizing the ceramic back down to ground down material ready to be recycled into another idea.
What’s the Speech All About? is one of a series of videos that is part of a collection of futile exercises questioning the value of work. Specifically, the value of artwork. I’m apply slip to a horse to describe its form and again question the idea of art in it’s “proper” setting. Using humor to entice the viewers awareness so that they too question, where art should and can exist and if something qualifies as artwork. Shot on a farm, I am using imagery of the rural that surrounds me to describe labor, physicality, physical memory, endurance and time. This video is a stage set for abstracted, bizarre, spontaneous and unpredictable outcomes that all maintain a curiosity for labor as well as art and it’s value.
The projection is an excerpt from an abstracted performance at night of a figure in nature, fighting in the wind under a sheet. Calling to mind the ideas of spirits and being caught in a space (similar to purgatory.) I have created this ritual for myself to take place once a week the way one would set aside time for reflection, meditation, religion or a visit with loved ones.
Time and Tide is the documentation of a clay-based performance carried out on Crescent Beach of Block Island, Rhode Island. In this performance, I search for rocks, seaweed, and shells. I temporarily transform the objects into ghost images of themselves by dipping them in porcelain slip. After placing the objects in their original locations, the sea calmly threatens the work I have done. While I perform, my actions are observed and ignored by passers-by. All the while, there is a constant tide ready to dismantle the energy put into my work.
This video is a performative installation in nature. I have been interested in using clay in nontraditional stages of the medium and in nontraditional studio practices (such as performance). The physicality of my process in working with clay is unlike any other medium for me. I am challenged to incorporate my whole body into the work and use the clay as a recording of my actions. In this piece, Sorry I Didn't Come Sooner Come Didn't I Sorry, I exploit the impermanence of the natural powder form of clay by installing it back into nature where the wind, snow and other elements affect the initial installation. Similar to burying a body or scattering ashes, the wind catches the clay dust and reveals the path of my weighted wondering and eventually over time, disappears.
Personal Process Outcome Future? is a video manifestation of my frustration for my working process in the studio. I work in a very physical way in order to move my own energy into pieces that I create. This way, I feel as though the energy can be captured in the work I make.
I choose clay as my language for art because I feel as though it has a memory unlike any other material. Recently, I have been trying to commit to a certain amount of sacrifice in what I make including; time, energy, sleep and physical self. This video is my attempt to capture the thing that simultaneously enhances and challenges me in everyday life.
The rhythm of the video is indicative to my working process where it is slow and unfocused to start, but gradually picks up in pace. The ritual of making mimics the noise of a heartbeat because I am constantly enamored with the opportunity of being able to create.
This is a single video excerpt of a multiple channel video piece of previous objects that were haunting me, being shot and destroyed.