F45-5
Well my materials have always been pretty cheap--thread, needles and fabric. I’ve bought lots of embroidery thread at garage sales and thrift stores—whenever you buy these things at a thrift store they always come in little personal sets—how the old lady who used them kept them- like in cookie tins with the threads wrapped around bits of cardboard—or in shoeboxes with old, needles stuck in paper and random scraps of felt. I am always thinking to myself “this is a dead lady’s thread.” It makes my studio feel kind of haunted..
But back to the recession---I think the explosion of consumerism and the commodification of artists and their work has been mostly negative. Artists have turned to branding because they perceive this as the best avenue for recognition. I think we lose something in this process because a brand is inevitably reductive. I think art is something ineffable containing power that has nothing to do with the marketplace and the crash in this marketplace will help to remind us of this.
The trash piles of stuff in your sculptures are jewelry, records, toys, cell phones; they are a smorgasbord of gen x and y stuff?
It’s trash but there is still stuff I love in there. Everything has a purpose and a point but that does not mean it is not also kind of worthless. I want to somehow feel ok with all the excess in the world—I want to consider it and engage with it so it does not feel so alien and such a drag. If I make these things that feel so unfortunate—like McDonald's wrappers and paper bags and then allow them equal footing with the things I value (an X-ray Spex 45 or a hot pink Sharpie) I am somehow reconciling these things for myself.
What are your thoughts as an artist on the human footprint and environmental concerns?