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Carousel; Spring 2010

This is my monster baby: the carousel, or "The Day My Carousel Stopped", as it became titled. Installation view. Mixed media construction and assemblage: wood, turntable, lights, objects. Approx 8'x10'x10'. 2010.




This project started out as just something vague that I had some sort of day dream about and became obsessed with making. In my dream, I saw it sitting in the middle of a warehouse space, just there: the ruins of something bizzare and magical. Its not precisely a carousel, because it doesn't have a canopy on it, but it is reminiscent of a carousel, and I think people basically understand it as such. What is this? Its the twirling pile of crap that is our lives.
It is piled up with all the THINGS that our lives are made up of- all the things that we might consider chores, or just something necessary that we have to take care of: cooking, washing, grooming, dealing with papers and letters, and getting from place to place. Its the things we find mundane until something happens in our lives where we are so distracted that we stop taking care of ourselves. The carousel stops.









This project is about failure.







In the end, it didn't turn. But it didn't matter.

Sideshow: installation, February 2010

I advertized this installation with a carnival type poster stating that there would be daily performances...little did the viewers know who that performer would be...





The viewer enters a room through a curtain, and then takes a step up through a second curtain. There is a harsh light in the viewers eyes, and there is laughter and talking, coughing and heckling...soon the viewer (hopefully) realizes that they are the performance- they are on the stage being heckled by an audience of bodiless voices: the audience is all speakers.




Many people told me that they felt truly degraded and belittled during their encounter with this piece. It was never my intention to make anyone feel bad! But I found it interesting that people had such emotional reactions. The piece is about how we, as artists and people, are expected to get up and perform, and all the times we fail, or think we fail, and all our anxieties about performance.

WhatSecretsLurkBeneaththeBed

View in to the room

some secrets

This installation was comprised of one interior bedroom with a small hallway "waiting" room on the exterior. In the begining, the work was supposed to be all about what was found under the bed- the viewer had to get down on hands a knees to view that information- but in the end, it became more about the feeling of the room and its very specific coloration. But overall, its about the secrets we keep from ourselves and others, and this work represents some physical manifestation of that.

Installation : "Unquiet"

This installation was comprised of four rooms, each to be viewed through a different opening- whether a door, keyhole, peephole, or on hands and knees.

Installation : First Attempt

Untitled installation

(I'm crazy and I don't know what Ive just done)

works : early 2009

"If I Only" Wooden box, oil can, text

(Should be viewed by standing on a chair or stepstool-hung high. The work should be discovered)

"If I Only" Detail

"Orange is Blue", Book pages, white-out

"Stack", card catalogue cards, frame

"I Know Why" Test tubes, rack, typewriter tape

detail

"Money Box", cash drawer, toys

detail for "Stack", card catalogue cards, frame