The Eyes Have It

Sometimes art makes us uncomfortable, or rather it should make us uncomfortable. I recognize that this flies in the face of popular concepts of art consumption. When many people consider “decorating” their homes with art they gravitate toward the tranquil, peaceful, and beautiful. If the work matches the sofa all the better. I have no problem with considerations of color palette. The work in my living room actually matches the furniture, too. We are bound to be attracted to specific color combinations. That, however, is not my main point.

There is a time and place for beauty, but that is not the only purpose of art in the twenty-first century. Art has a forcefulness to it and to neglect that power is to push it into the background—to make it wallpaper. Some art, even that placed in the sanctuaries of our homes, should cause us to pause and consider the deeper aspects of life.

Art that deviates from the beautiful or causes us to consider the great questions of life may not be what everyone wants in his or her bedroom, but it does have a place in the home. This kind of imagery works on us over time. It forms and informs us in subtle ways. If that work is not within our living spaces, but only in museums, then it does not fulfill its purpose. It does not reach its potential.

With all this in mind, I recently obtained several sets of antique doll eyes (pictured here). These are the type of eyes that close when Betsy Wetsy is placed on her back for naptime. The lead weights dangling from the bottom of the pairs of eyes causes them to pivot inside a doll’s head. The first time I came across some of these was at a summer art workshop. A friend had some reserved for an assemblage project. I was fascinated at once.

They are creepy. I will not deny that. Any time we find eyes loosely roaming outside of a head it is creepy. The fact that some of these sets are missing one eye and that I have other eyeballs rolling around that are not even connected to these sets makes them even creepier. I purposely photographed them on the crushed red velvet because it adds a bloody element that is even more disturbing. Maybe not what you want to see when you first awake in the morning, but the unsettling quality can be beneficial.

The idea of using these eyes has been gestating within me for about six years. Even before I purchased some of them I was writing notes about their “artful purpose” within my sketchbooks. Once I had them in hand I started making sketches for the altarpiece construction for which I envisioned them. A few days after I made these initial sketches I found some old notes in another place in my sketchbook and found that the combination of objects and imagery I had been sketching was something I had already been thinking about much earlier, though I had forgotten.

As is normal for postings like this, I’m not going to divulge too much more information about what I plan to do. However, I am going to share that these eyes will be used alongside a type of book page—a form of text—that I have not previously utilized. Gospel pages from a Braille Bible. Okay, now I’m ruining the suspense. Keep checking back for future details.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

After a significant absence, I have returned to the blogosphere. Thank you to those who have been followers of this blog and who have voiced their interest and comments about the subjects discussed. I do intend to keep up with the entries on a more regular basis, though, if I have to forego something, writing about artwork—mine or that of someone else—is likely to be on the chopping block before actually creating artwork.

I have stated at various times that the process of creating my altarpiece constructions is quite lengthy. The initial ideas and sketches typically come several years before the finished products. Sometimes that is because I am searching for very specific elements and objects to place within the works. It also takes some time to build and age the physical structures. The piece shown here was mostly constructed in the summer of 2011. However, the very first sketches for this work were likely produced in 2003 or 2004. My memory on that is a bit hazy. I tend not to date sketches because I will work on them again and again over several years.

Within these sketches the progression of the concept is seen. I do know that this work came about from the acquisition of several pieces from an antique store in New Hampshire. The first sketch shows some specific elements, most obviously the small electric fan on the top. At that stage, I intended to place some sculptural wings along the top, as well. I never did find any wings that would be appropriate. Eventually, I happened upon a set of porcelain dove salt and pepper shakers at another antique store somewhere near Washington DC, while visiting a friend. They became an alternate solution for the wings.

Two sketches appear next to each other in the second example—these are even in a different sketchbook as the first one had already been filled. The first image subtracts the wings and includes only one of the doves. The sketch below it has included both doves and some additional, new elements. One is an antique military-issued gas mask. Another is two metal acanthus leaf finials of some sort. Those finials were in a box of “junk” that I picked up at a flea market in Massachusetts at least a year or two later. They were not even what I actually wanted in that box of objects, yet I found a use for them.

The evolution of this work was slow. Still, the fan remained as kind of a crown on the top of the piece. Even while the work was being built that was the intention. When I was recently gearing up to work on the piece again, finishing off the trim and all the gold leafing and aging, I decided the placement of the fan on the top was just too much. A sketch, after all, is still distinctly different from a physical, three dimensional thing. Proportionally it did not seem right. The entire work was too tall and the fan seemed spindly in that spot. The fan was, however, an integral element from the conception of this piece.

I recognized that the fan could fit inside the uppermost section and would still operate as a type of oculus for the work. This did require that I shift some of the remaining elements into some other areas and boxes in the piece, but the new solution was much more satisfying. The altarpiece is now ready for the final painting stage and should be finished within the next couple months. That means that it will be nearly a ten year endeavor. That may seem too long for some artists. For a work like this it is just the right amount of time. These pieces need to evolve and change over time. The nuances that are manifested over the creation of the pieces also work on the viewer over longer periods of time. The works are not static, but reveal more with each additional viewing.

Karma Chameleon

Having a variety of interests can pose a challenge. For me, it has never been quite like the saying about the Jack-of-All-Trades, but dividing time among a multitude of interests certainly takes time from those things about which one is most passionate.

In the late 1990s, when I was teaching full-time, I tended to use the semesters as a time for reading, research, and sketching. Printmaking, particularly, was accomplished in the summer months. In those months there was plenty of time and no one else using the studio. When I was later working full-time as the director of an art non-profit there were no summer breaks, though I kept generating complex ideas for future artworks.

Having the ability to devote nearly all of my time to producing art over the past year and a half opened my eyes to something. I can never keep up with all the ideas. Even though I am producing exponentially more artwork than before, it takes time to actually create it. While carving a woodblock or painting on a book page a new thought is bound to enter my mind—another rabbit hole is opened and the chase begins again.

Occasionally, the reason I take several years to complete a piece has nothing to do with the time it physically takes to complete it. Many of the altarpiece constructions are developed through sketches and the assemblage items are devised at that stage. I often have some items collected already, awaiting an altarpiece in which they can be placed. At other times I imagine an object I would like to use, but then I have to search to find it.

The hunt is always on. I have previously relayed stories on this blog about my search for chattering teeth and doll parts. My great white whale, for several years, was a chameleon figurine. Aside from eBay and Google searches I have looked at dozens of flea markets, antique stores, and junk shops everywhere from New York City to Los Angeles—I mean this literally. There was a glimmer of hope in New Haven, CT when I spotted a plastic chameleon in a shop window display. It was, unfortunately, there for effect but not for sale.

When I recently stopped into an arts and crafts supply store, for an unrelated item, I spotted a wooden lizard. It was a somewhat generic lizard, but I knew it could easily be transformed into my reliquary chameleon. After I bisected a glass bead, for the eyes, hollowed out some eye sockets, and applied paint and gold leaf, the chameleon was complete. One of the best parts is that it still functions like a child’s toy—giving it a certain Joseph Cornell air.

I imagine that through all this discussion you may be wondering, "Why would you place a gilded chameleon in a reliquary anyway?" Without divulging too much about the work in progress, I will mention that the chameleon reflects the very sentiments with which I began this essay. Many of us live multifaceted lives in which our various interests cause us to become "all things to all people."

Political correctness has so subdivided our society into various, predetermined, sub-cultural roles that we often find ourselves exhibiting one form of behaviors in one setting and a completely different set in another. While I am not implying that we are being untruthful or immoral in any of these actions, I do suggest that this belittles the complexity of who we are as human beings. We cannot be defined by checking off the boxes that best describe our main interests and personality traits.

In order to navigate this complex terrain we have learned to acclimate to each new circumstance. The chameleon-like ability to do this is held sacred to many. Considering that most of us will now change careers nearly half a dozen times in our lives, this might be thought of as an asset. Conversely, we may want to criticize a culture that vigorously opposes any ambiguities or "seemingly" antithetical beliefs or interests held by an individual. Philosophies and ideologies are far from perfect and it will take our entire lives to decipher our personal belief systems. These will also change and transform over time. The chameleon is, therefore, an accurate portrayal of our human growth and self understanding.

Travels Along the Road of Life

The spike in gasoline prices over the past couple years has certainly put a spotlight on transportation costs. Those living in major metropolitan centers have long been accustomed to mass transportation. While some of the debate includes proposals of alternative energies and less individual automobile use, the reality is that some parts of the U.S. will simply cease to be inhabited if we have to cut back on automobile use (not to mention pickup and SUV use).

These places are just not walkable. Personally, I like to live in a walkable area. This is one of the things I love about Boston. Whether I would drive into Boston and park or take the commuter train, I would usually walk from place to place and take the T (subway) if I had to go very far. Once, when my cousin was visiting, we ended up walking most of the Freedom Trail, starting in Boston Common and walking to the North End and back, then to the South End and back. It was a great way to see the city and I never would have found one of my favorite bow ties if we hadn’t passed an out-of-the-way men’s store on foot.

I will confess, however, that my primary joy in walking is the discovery of odd stuff along the way. I’m not an outdoorsy person, so my walks do not typically involve any investigations of the wonders of nature. I prefer walking through urban areas where I can come across some of the strangest objects you can imagine.

This scavenging for trash started at an early age, much to the dismay of my parents. We lived two houses down from the elementary school where my mother taught. Once, just days after school let out for the summer, my sisters and I happened upon an overflowing dumpster at the school. I no longer recall what we brought home, but something beyond repair, which had once, no doubt, been in my mother’s classroom, was probably among the newfound treasures. It was matched the excitement of a trip to the candy store and toy store rolled into one.

In Florida, I have to wait until the winter months to go on these trash hikes. It is not as enjoyable to search for these items drenched in perspiration while developing a severe sun burn. I did manage to pick up a few items on a recent walk. I have been considering incorporating a mosaic made from the shattered remnants of taillights and turn signals. which tend to collect at intersections. I did find some bits for that on my five mile trek, but I need to clean up several accident sites before that project can go into production.

The best find on that journey was parts from a couple different cell phones. They are obviously a little beaten up, as one would expect with something found on the side of the road. I always imagine a scenario that accompanies roadside cell phones. It involves a teenage couple—or perhaps a very immature couple in their twenties—in a heated argument inside a car. Likely, one is jealous and when that one wrong person calls, the phone is apprehended by the jealous party and tossed through an open window of the moving vehicle. Maybe this is another indictment against our gasoline powered culture, but I think it has more to do with selfish people who can’t manage their relationships.

Cell phones are a nice convenience and I am grateful to have one on a long roadtrip, as insurance if anything goes wrong. However, cell phones are one of many elements that comprise the broken state of contemporary interpersonal communications. We do not connect deeply and effectively in our relationships. Quick, needless cell phone calls and many text messages often do more to erode our relationships than strengthen them. And I’m not even touching on the inherent problems of email.

Even the best advances of technology become mute hunks of plastic and metal when they end up under the tire of a car. Quick, short communications have become commonplace. These virtual conversations often take place in public settings and tend to cause the persons involved to momentarily abort their in-person communications. How often is a Twitter message more important than a business lunch or the one-on-one conversations people have on a date?
It seems that many in our contemporary society fear real intimacy. It takes time, effort, and concentration to really get to know another person. It takes the same effort to be known by another. Communications technologies provide the illusion that we are deeply communicating. However, quantity of communication should never be confused with quality. And the very private details of a life that are sometimes broadcast on Facebook and Twitter are a far cry from true intimacy.

Maybe all this is why I like to walk. These days walking is intentional. We often do it because we want to, not because we have to. We move at the pace of the natural world. Perhaps it is time to remember what a human pace really is. Living in our physical bodies is not convenient, but it is a life based on the parameters that we have been given.

How to Make a Spectacle of Yourself

There was an instance when I was in high school when I skipped classes for a day. I acknowledge it as an instance because it was not a common occurrence and I was always the type to strictly follow the rules. I had an orthodontic appointment early in the day and just didn’t want to return to school. I stopped by my mother’s kindergarten classroom on my way and actually asked permission. When she was satisfied with my answer, that there were no tests or pressing assignments, I was allowed to skip.

So what does a teenage kid do when skipping school? Head to the mall—the temple of American Consumerism. The purchase I made that day caused a certain amount of tension within my family unit. I had purchased a pair of non-prescription glasses. The rest of my family has to wear glasses. I, however, chose to wear them, more like a fashion accessory. "Why," they demanded, "would anyone choose to wear glasses if they didn’t have to?"

I only wore the glasses intermittently over a period of about three years. The taunts from the rest of the family persisted long after. "You’ll be sorry. One day you’ll have to wear glasses." I was constantly reminded that, "When I was your age I had perfect eyesight, too. Just you wait." I still have perfect vision as time marches on. They still have to keep getting their prescriptions changed once or twice a year.

The further torment for them will be when the assemblage/altarpieces with antique spectacles reach points of completion. Maybe the laws of God and nature will have caught up with me by then, but I doubt it. Accumulations of wire rimmed spectacles might suggest a slight mockery of their degenerating sight, but I have better reasons to use them than that.

The proposed accumulations are somewhat reminiscent of the assemblage work of Nouveau Realiste artist Arman. He was part of the French equivalent of Pop art. Arman is best known for his accumulations of identical objects. I don’t recall if I’ve ever seen a piece of his incorporating eye glasses. I do acknowledge that my use of these will bring, to some, associations of Jewish Holocaust photos. There are several historic images of piles of discarded glasses, shoes, and other personal items of victims of that genocide. I assure you, this is not my goal.

The mass accumulations of objects more forcibly assert the presence of the object. The viewer then is confronted with the importance of that object within the assemblage. Because my constructions contain additional objects, text, and painted passages, connections among the disparate elements need to be made by the viewer.

Glasses are worn to help us see more clearly. They help us, literally, to focus. While many people wear glasses to correct general vision problems, others are known to wear "reading glasses." For this very reason, there remains the unconscious—though sometimes openly stated—stereotype that people with glasses are bookish and somehow smarter. Of course, the derogatory concept is that those with glasses are "nerdy."

In the instances where I have chosen to incorporate eyeglasses and other lenses (magnifying glasses, cameras, movie cameras, Viewmaster viewers, etc.) the viewer needs to pay closer attention. More "reading" needs to be done. Perhaps that reading is part of what is being regarded within the piece as a whole. It is a signal as to how the viewer should approach all the works, not just the ones with the lenses. To understand—to enjoy the work—is to interpret it, to read it.

Time Keeps on Slippin’… into the Future

One summer, which I suspect to have been about 1985, I spent several weeks at my aunt and uncle’s in Ohio. They live in suburban Dayton—though I’m not sure Dayton itself can actually be considered urban. My aunt fondly recalls being on the verge of packing me up in a box and shipping me home—media rate. This was mainly because I was an overachiever when it came to inciting my two younger cousins to perform acts of mischief. But in my defense, they never needed all that much encouragement.

This was the summer that I first began to picture myself in the role of an artist. My cousins and I were watching either Bob Ross or some other “You too can be an artist” personality on PBS one day. I agreed with the sentiments of the show. I knew that I could be at least as good of an artist as that person, who played one on TV. Within a couple weeks after returning home I was attempting my first paintings—still lifes in poster paint on typewriter paper. Only the most archival materials for me.

Outside of my early forays into painting, there was another interest of mine that developed that same summer. My aunt and uncle’s next door neighbor held a yard sale while I was staying there. The only item I remember from the yard sale was an old grandfather clock. It didn’t work and that was part of the intrigue. I wanted to fix it so that it would work again. Needless to say, it was out of my adolescent no-income price range. Even if I had been able to buy it there was no way to get it back to Michigan in my parents’ car.

When I am searching through antique shops and flea markets clocks and watches are always on my list of possible purchases. The greater the disrepair the better. And I really have a slight obsession with pocket watches, too.

I can’t fix these devices. Having the ability to fix them is no longer part of the attraction. I like inspecting the mechanics of the time pieces. The gears and springs are similar to the inner workings of the human body, but without the blood and mess. So I have found that clocks and watches, and their internal organs, have come to exist as a personal metaphor for the human body.

The brokenness of the clocks is a representation of some form of brokenness in our lives. It can represent physical brokenness, and ultimately death, but it is more apt to symbolize relational brokenness. Even the disrepair of our inner dialogues, our states of psychological and spiritual well-being, can be exhibited through this mechanical brokenness. And of course, the temporal is an automatic association. Though we exist in time, these broken clocks appear to relate to an existence that is timeless.

What You See is What You See

I once had work in an exhibition in Salem, MA. It coincided with an exhibition at Salem’s Peabody-Essex Museum that featured the work of Joseph Cornell and was curated by the museum’s chief curator Lynda Roscoe-Hartigan, who is the preeminent scholar on Cornell. The work in this other exhibition was by artists who were influenced by Cornell in one way or another.

I am not overly cautious about the handling of my altarpiece constructions when simply driving them down the road a few miles. Some parts of the works are breakable, but they are quite sturdy in general. What concerns me more is their presentation.

The problem that arose with this exhibition was that work had to be delivered to one location but was to be installed at another. I just don’t trust others with putting all the pieces back together in their proper positions. I was given a special dispensation and a half hour window when I could reorganize the elements of the works displayed. I was glad to have this because the sticky notes I found with sketches on them concerning the placement of the objects mentioned the "bottles with cookies in them." I suspect these were drawn up by the woman with—and I’m not kidding here—lavender hair.

Curious hair color choices aside, I have had several people question me about the glass jars and their contents. The intended purpose of the bottles expanded after the first few pieces were completed. In all of them you will find at least two bottles—one with wine and one with unleavened bread (or cookies, if you’re so inclined). Since the original intent of the work was that pieces seemingly function as portable devotional altarpieces, the portability needed to account for the lack of an actual altar and the need to contain the Eucharistic elements.

The wine and bread will likely continue to be a part of the format of these works. They suggest an element of interactivity, a participatory aspect for the viewer. Their purpose began to expand in works like the Altarpiece and Reliquary of St. Joseph. The bottles in this work hold items such as olive oil, scraps of text cut from book pages, and a broken light bulb. Each is a symbolic reference to this St. Joseph.

Past the objects that are held within the bottles themselves, I needed to consider whether or not the bottles were simply an homage to Cornell or if they expresses some greater, and more personal idea. As containers, sealed containers, they can sometimes seem to prevent the viewer from actually participating in the work. You can see the elements of the Eucharist but you cannot ingest them.

Rather than prevention, the sealed bottles can be viewed as a form of preservation. In the same way that an actual reliquary preserves the objects associated with a particular saint, these bottles preserve objects. They are necessary objects, in a sense. They are somewhat sacramental because they suggest a purpose that is greater than mere symbolism.

Related to the bottles are cordial glasses. While there are not yet any completed pieces that incorporate the glasses, there are several underway. These objects were derived from Cornell works, too. For my pieces, I needed to determine their relevance before placing them. To simply borrow the object would have been irresponsible and rather uncreative.

The glasses can contain objects just as the bottles do. They also appear in broken forms. Their brokenness is sometimes a reference to other forms of brokenness conveyed in the larger piece. It can also represent an openness or a release. Materials in these broken glasses are more available to the viewer than those sealed in the bottles. Yet they are also unprotected and more susceptible to decay.

Of course, none of these ideas may be apparent to the viewer. One thing that is apparent, whether viewers consciously consider it or not, is that glass is transparent. The objects in both glasses and bottles can be seen, they are not hidden. The objects become another layer, like paint and text. Each is an equal participant in the full meaning of the works. Viewers may obtain the meaning when considering the interaction of the layers.

Tickling the Ivories (or Plastics)

My apartment in Massachusetts was not only shelter, it was a place for entertainment. Aside from my landlord—the first floor resident during my initial year there—the rotation of neighbors made for some rather laughable events. There was the twenty-something stoner kid who regularly yelled the most unspeakable obscenities at his mother. There was also the lovelorn girlfriend/ex-girlfriend who came storming into my downstairs neighbor’s apartment late one night in a rage that was eventually followed up by a visit from the cops. Even my own apartment had some suspect activity when a prowler tried to break in on July 4th/5th at 1:30 AM—though that one wasn’t quite so humorous.

Typically, the activity was on a much more subdued scale. Either that, or I just missed much of it because I spent little more than my sleeping hours there. I believe I was asleep when the stray moose wandered about near my car during an autumn with unseasonably high rainfall. I adopted the mindset that nothing should surprise me. Still, I was a little shocked when my neighbors moved out and left an upright piano sitting outside, exposed to the elements. I figured that they were coming back for it soon, but after it sat through three rain storms I concluded it had been abandoned.

It wasn’t an exceptional piano though I suspect it had been decent enough. After that much rain it was in sad shape. Most of my family possess some musical ability. I even played about five different instruments at various times. That imprinted a great respect for musical instruments in me. This abandoned piano conveyed a sense of tragedy. Even so, I am ever the scavenger for art materials and I decided that I would dismantle the ruined object for wood and the keyboard.

It was a noble idea, It was. I could only arrange the task of demolition for a Saturday and the Friday night before my scheduled dismantling I found that my landlord (or more likely his father) had beaten me to it. The keyboard was gone, as was much of the wood. What remained—for a couple weeks—was the soundboard. I worked at that in vain. It was too heavy and well constructed to bend to my feeble attempts with hand tools. I salvaged some choice pieces of wood and sulked in my failure.

The piano keys remained as an object that haunted my subconscious. I don’t even know what it is about old, battered musical instruments that fascinates me. I had no specific plan for those keys. I often have no preliminary plan for objects that seem likely additions to an altarpiece/construction.

Once in a lifetime opportunities are sometimes not so limited. You can imagine my delight when I spotted an organ abandoned behind a thrift store down the street from wher I currently reside. It wasn’t quite the same thing as the piano, but it was a close second. I waited several days on the organ. Once the rains came I figured the organ was destined for the landfill. I then asked the manager of the store if I could remove the keys and she complied.

These two keyboards, from a rather cheap 1960s or 70s era organ, were not quite as lovely as the piano keys. The poor craftsmanship made for a much easier job of dismantling, though it still took a few hours. I had to take apart nearly all the larger component pieces to get to the keys. I was actually kind of doing a favor for the thrift store since the remaining parts were now ready to be thrown into the dumpster; the staff didn’t need to arrange and pay for a special trash pickup.

This is the part of the story where I normally explain some detail of how the object or item will be used in an altarpiece. Sorry to disappoint. I’m not there yet. I’ve worked on some preliminary sketches but everything feels forced so far. It may be a couple years before the concept congeals. I do know that something unique will come from the discovery. When a coveted object makes itself available—twice—you have to trust that it will be used in the right time.

To End at the Beginning

I have worn a variety of hats in my professional life: teacher, administrator, curator, art critic, and more. No matter what my official title is at any given time, there is one title that always remains—artist. It is something that is integral to my personality and the artist’s mind and mode of seeing cannot really be turned off at will. That means that new and in-process works are always rambling through my head, often when I least expect them.

There are certain times when I am actively seeking ideas and inspiration. When I visit flea markets and antique shops I have a couple goals. I tend to have a mental list of items I’m seeking. Odd objects that will become relics within larger altarpieces are often located on these excursions. No matter how the idea for an altarpiece originates—from an object I have already found or an idea that came from something I read or heard—I tend to envision additional objects as I sketch the design. A rooster (really just a chicken), a lamb, a doll’s head, a platter, a honey dipper/dripper. All of these have been on my list and were found on one of these trips (Of course that elusive chameleon is still on my list! I think it is just blending into its surroundings).

I now stick by the rule that if I find an item, even when I’m not searching for it, I better get it. When I lived in Massachusetts there was a great flea market I sometimes attended on Sunday mornings before church. My friend George and I would get up at 5 AM in order to paw through the assorted trash and treasures before heading out to mass. I will be incorporating my finds from the Todd Farm flea market for decades to come. My other reliable haunt was the antique shops in a small town in New Hampshire. That is where I learned the lesson to buy it right when you find it.

On what I would guess was my second trip to these antique shops, I happened upon one of those life-sized Christ child statues/dolls that churches often display in a manger around Christmas. Mind you, I was not in the market for one and I also had no idea what I would do with the thing if I bought it. I do recall that it was priced higher than what I was really willing to pay. I was drawn to the worn quality of the object. It was missing fingers and had scars and abrasions over its surface. So, I gathered the objects I planned to buy, made my purchases and went home without baby Jesus.

The Christ child would not leave my mind, however, as Jesus is often want to do. I tend to be enchanted by objects no one else would, so I returned later that week expecting little Jesus to be there waiting for me. I was wrong. I still didn’t know what I would have done with it, but I was greatly disappointed that I didn’t obtain it when I had the chance.

Several months later I returned to the New Hampshire antique shops with my friends Barry and Kathy. We had spent the previous day in meetings and part of my thank you to them was this trek to our immediate north. Barry is known for his assemblage work and I knew he would be delighted with the shops. He ended up filling his suitcases for the return flight to California and I even had to mail an additional box of items to him later.

I picked up some old cameras, a bunch of skeleton keys, and some old iron claw feet from a bathtub. I figured I would find a few items but I didn’t expect to be fascinated with an object I was not actually seeking. Inside a glass display case I spotted an antique German doll. It wasn’t exactly that missing baby Jesus, but it elicited a similar response. This doll was made from pressed metal. The head and legs were detached from the torso and the parts were piled in a wooden cigar box. It was also placed in a price range I was reluctant to enter.

The siren call of the dismantled infant eventually proved irresistible and I purchased it, having no idea what I would do with a dismembered doll. The doll lounged in its cigar box daybed for several months. I passed it daily and contemplated its meaning. Since it had reminded me of that baby Jesus I had passed by, I kept mentally interrogating its purpose within my studio.

One day, while working through the sketches for a crucifixion piece I was developing, the meaning of the doll struck me clearly. This small object was the complete history of Christ. It was the miraculous birth of the incarnate God, yet it was also the foreshadowing image of the adult Christ. Here, the infant of the Christmas story was also revealed as the object of ultimate sacrifice and salvation for all humanity.

As the relevance of this relic for an unknown altarpiece construction revealed itself the other elements of the work quickly fell into place. I learned a good lesson with the doll. Trust your instincts. I see many objects at antique shops and flea markets that spark an interest, but few have captivated me to this degree. I now understand that when they do I need to bite the bullet, spend the cash, and wait for the next artwork to reveal itself. These unconscious symbols surround us. It is the role of the artist to connect the dots and uncover their hidden meanings.

The Pilgrimage: Unforeseen Journeys

As I prepared for a one month teaching stint in Italy in 2006, I had a list of artworks, altarpieces, and locations with and at which I planned to spend some quality time. I had been in Italy for a little more than a week in 1991, but that was before I had ever taken an art history class. In the intervening years I had taught art history to hundreds of college students and the altarpiece had become a significant form within my own work.

I was lucky enough to have a friend from Boston who was living in Florence at the time. So I spent a few days with him and planned my schedule so that I could see as many works as possible. This, however, did not include entering Florence’s domed cathedral (the Duomo) or visiting the Academia to see Michelangelo’s David and Slaves. I had already seen these works and, though they are worthy of multiple extended visits, I knew there were some less widely known works I had not previously seen that would prove to be better stops during this pilgrimage.

I spent the better part of one day in the Uffizi Museum. One morning was devoted to the convent of San Marco with the frescoed cells of Beato (Fra) Angelico. The final morning found me crossing the Ponte Vecchio bridge to see Pontormo’s masterful Deposition and the Brancacci Chapel at Santa Maria del Carmine.

At both the Uffizi and the museum at the San Marco convent I did the type of sketching I had anticipated. The frames on various altarpieces and smaller devotional works were intricately carved and gilded. Reproductions in books never do these details justice since they are flattened. Some books even leave the frames off completely. Though I don’t try to make the constructed portions of my own altarpieces quite like their renaissance era predecessors, I do gain valuable information from studying them closely.

What I had not expected was the impact reliquaries and medieval wooden statuary would have on me. I came across these beautiful and curious objects in unexpected places. In Florence, I did not shun Michelangelo completely; I visited his Medici tombs in San Lorenzo. Like many of the churches in the city it also has an adjacent museum. The gilded bones and odd possessions of long departed saints were encased in complexly designed, jewel encrusted structures.

Back in Orvieto, where I was spending most of my days, I visited the museum of the city’s cathedral. It had an exhibit of work by Simone Martini. His international gothic style Annunciation has always been inspiring as an altarpiece form. Some of the other works on display, but not in that exhibit, were what really drew my attention. Several worm eaten wooden sculptures of saints simultaneously possessed a sense of decay and a tender, life-like presence. I took detailed notes concerning their condition. Later, on several visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, I studied similar medieval statuary. While they intrigued me, I wasn’t sure how these sculptural works related to what I was presently pursuing in the altarpieces.

When I found a broken wooden hand mannequin—the kind artists use when sketching out hand gestures—I began to see it as a reliquary object. It was on clearance at an art supply store so I picked it up for future use. It is becoming a hybrid form, and is still in process. The wooden sculptures I had been studying are typically painted (polychromed) in life-like colors. Reliquary objects are often coated in gold. This hand resides somewhere between these two forms. It is both worm eaten, weathered wood and a mystical golden relic. It connects to an ancient past but is also of this contemporary moment.

What the hand means within the larger context of a specific altarpiece will be up to the viewer to conceive. I have my concept for this relic, but I don’t want to reveal too much about the work before it is finished. Keep reading future posts for further details.

What’s in a Name?

Sometimes the words spoken or written by someone else impact us in unexpected ways. My altarpiece series of personal saints is almost entirely based on my study of the writings of others. There are, however, several altarpieces that are currently in the construction stage that came about by much more haphazard means. For instance, the concept for one piece was born out a fairly minor point in a sermon I heard a few years ago. I think it was a Good Friday sermon, but who knows now because what I retained was a vivid image that took me in a direction that my priest would certainly not have anticipated.

The most unusual case like this began sometime in the mid-1990s. The band Sixpence None the Richer, long before they had a hit song on the teen television (melo)drama Dawson’s Creek, released a CD entitled Tickets for a Prayer Wheel. I was always struck by this title and kept it in the back of my mind for some future use.

About four or five years ago the title became the impetus for an altarpiece exploring the concept of prayer. The only problem was that I had no idea what a prayer wheel actually was. I used the term to conjure up my own meaning and imagery. Upon researching the term I learned that a prayer wheel is used in Buddhist practices and that Annie Dillard, of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek fame, had actually first written a poem that shares the title, which is included in her book of poetry of that same name.

I came to the phrase through the backdoor, but by the time I recognized the genesis of the term my personal conceptualization of a prayer wheel was well underway. My prayer wheel would need to present a characteristic similar to a carnival game. My reasoning was that our concept of prayer often expresses a quality that resembles games of chance (for this I owe a debt to both Joseph Cornell and Robert Indiana). The prayers in my game/altarpiece lack a certain amount of faith and are often self centered. They are somewhat like the prayers that Anne LaMott, in her book Traveling Mercies, places in the categories of Help Me! Help Me! Help Me! and Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Sometimes that is all we can muster. And I am well aware that, when uttered in desperation and faith, God answers them. This rudimentary format is, nevertheless, the basis of the practice of prayer and so this almost comical side had to come through.

One of the first objects, or relics, I envisioned for this altarpiece was one of those sets of chattering teeth that you wind up. I looked high and low on trips all over the U.S. and could never find them in any store. I think I would have had better luck checking the back pages of comic books, and could probably have found some X-ray specs, too! Just before I was settling on purchasing some chattering teeth—ones I didn’t even like that much—online I stumbled upon a much better replacement. (along similar lines, I am currently searching for a small plastic chameleon and always appreciate a good lead!)

One Saturday morning I was wandering the streets of lower Manhattan, on my way to visit the galleries in the Chelsea district, when I stumbled upon a flea market located in a parking garage. I found out some months later that this was one of the last Saturdays the flea market was still open. It no longer exists. Always on the lookout for some specific or not yet discovered/uncovered object, I stopped inside. Amongst the oddments I saw them. A slightly oversized set of teeth. These plastic teeth are the sort that a dentist uses when showing a patient the proper method for brushing. In fact, there was also an oversized toothbrush, but I passed on that, even though the dealer really wanted to unload both items.
I was able to talk the dealer down to $20 from the $30 he was asking, I spent the remainder of the day traversing the streets of New York with these oversized choppers in my Timbuk 2 messenger bag. I can only imagine the private conversation the teeth held with my Mac laptop. I suspect the prayers had already begun.

Now the teeth are gilded in silver and gold. That was always my intention. Their size was much more appropriate to the task than the wind up teeth. They invoke the same humorous presence, but the gilding elevates their station. They are now a relic. They possess a presence of holiness that belies their common and humorous stature. The gilded teeth are much like humans—crass and comical, we are created with much more dignity than we often display or comprehend.

Santos: An Unlikely Case for Veneration

My formative years were spent in the bosom of the conservative Protestant Midwest. It is a land and culture essentially devoid of any mixing of art and religion. Save for the occasional and obligatory portrait of Christ by Warner Sallman (and the one at my church had an incandescent glow from a light bulb located behind the frame), the only matrimony these two shared was in the kitschy figures that populated the Sunday School flannelgraph board. I expect there was an underlying fear we might be breaking the second commandment’s prohibition on idolatry. At the very least, we didn’t want to be accused of being papists.

A lot of artistic and religious water has passed under the bridge in the intervening decades. I have arrived at the other side with some rather divergent conclusions. It would certainly prove difficult to work as an artist if I held the view that the creation of any and all images is an affront to God. And while some still hold that view or struggle with it—for them I recommend the novels of Chaim Potok: My Name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Ashe Lev—a clear understanding that God wishes for us to place nothing in this world above him allows much freedom in the creation of images. Graven or otherwise.

But back to the derided Catholics, and the Orthodox for that matter. There is no doubt an allure to these traditions for those who have existed in a visual vacuum. A large percentage of the art produced in the Western world for the last thousand years was made in service of these traditions. But with the birth of the Protestant Reformation, countless statues of various saints were obliterated. The clear message was that Christians were not to be in the business of this image making. And for almost five hundred years that was the sole message that some Protestants received, as misguided and unbased in actual scripture and history as it was.

The tradition of creating these statues of saints to supplement religious contemplation and devotion did not end with the Reformation. On the contrary, Rome redoubled its efforts with the Counter-Reformation. The far ranging effects of this initiative shifted the Catholic faith into and throughout the New World. Without a common language in these new territories, it was the artwork that revealed the story of Christ to the indigenous peoples. In Christ and the saints they found the archetypes and personalities already represented in their own religious systems.

This transplantation of the Christian saints to new cultures is where my interest in the santos figure began. In the American Southwest these figures abound. Natives of the region now known as New Mexico were naturally drawn to a religious experience that incorporated ritual. The veneration of saints, aided by statues depicting them, provided a palatable transition.

Here I must delineate the difference between veneration and worship. This is, indeed, at the root of the iconoclasm that sprouted in the Reformation. For Christians, worship is given unto God alone. In some traditions, veneration is permitted when it comes to canonized saints, through their icons and relics. To the casual observer, it might appear that the person venerating an icon of a saint is in fact worshipping a painting—and there can be a fine line—but something else is really taking place. He or she is actually honoring those Christ-like qualities present in the life of that saint, worthy of our consideration and contemplation.

The santos figures themselves are based on prototypes of saint sculptures created in Catholic Europe. With the dynamic expansion of the Catholic faith in the New World the demand for religious art surpassed the supply. The Church eventually relented and allowed craftsmen in these "new" territories to create religious art for use in their new missions and churches. These New World santos often have a bit of a folk art sensibility that comes from an overflow of the traditional art of the original cultures.

The image above is a type of mass produced and generic santo. I found it at TJ Maxx in the home decor section. I felt that, with a little alteration, this could easily be incorporated into one of my altarpieces. I am still figuring out who this little figure will represent and what the scheme of the rest of the altarpiece will be. It is a logical progression, however, to add such a figure. The concept of veneration was an essential element of the first series of altarpieces.

Repurposing Refuse

It comes as a surprise to some that my formal art education is actually in painting. Many first discover my work in printmaking and assume that I am primarily a printmaker. Those who have viewed my more recent "paintings" are well aware that the painting portion of those pieces is actually only a small element within a much larger construct.

It wasn’t until I was in the final semester of my graduate work that it dawned on me where my natural artistic interests were. My MFA thesis exhibition was actually comprised of paintings that connected with two works from my undergraduate thesis show. All of these employed fairly typical painting technique and realistic imagery, but they were composed of multiple panels that revealed only partial segments of larger pictorial schemes—with gaps in between the smaller panels.

By then, the painting was pretty much second nature. I always improve and shift my style a bit over time, but painting is not overly complex to me; it is just something I do. Yet from a fairly young age, the one thing with which I had often occupied my time was constructing things. I used cardboard, paper, styrofoam—whatever was on hand and free. Long before everyone had a personal computer at home and we were accustomed to typing PIN numbers into keypads after swiping debit cards, I was constructing three dimensional keypads and ID cards from paper for my cousins. These gave us special access as secret agents, as I recall.

There is something about the physical object that is essential to my artwork. Even with printmaking, the tactile quality of the blocks and plates is a part of my satisfaction. But it is not simply the construction of the objects (i.e. the enclosing structure of an altarpiece) that intrigues me. It is the interaction of images and objects within the works that most interests me.

It is only natural, therefore, that I have such a great appreciation for the work of Joseph Cornell (see previous posting). Even though Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp were the innovators who first placed everyday objects into artworks, Cornell became and remains the master of the technique. The key to the success of his assemblage work is in placing unlikely objects in an environment in which their interactions are not obvious but still seem natural. Cornell is often cited as tapping into the elements of childhood and nostalgia. It is, nonetheless, more complicated than that. His choice and placement of objects and images touches on some collectively recognized and seemingly unnamable qualities.

I had started incorporating assemblage-like objects into my early altarpiece works nearly a decade ago. They had a fairly specific and more obvious function at that time. In each of these you will find small glass bottles and jars that contain bread and wine—the elements of the Eucharist. Since the first series was concerned with personal saints—individuals who have influenced my art and thinking in one way or another—the Eucharistic devices made reference to the "great cloud of witnesses" and our connection to them within the Church universal.

I still use these elements in newer altarpieces, but other objects started to make their way into the works, too. Visually and aesthetically, I liked how the pieces were evolving, but often an artist’s work begins a process of transformation before he or she recognizes why. Furthermore, I was beginning the sketches for a new series of altarpieces, starting with objects I had found at flea markets and antique shops, before I discovered how they were driving the work conceptually.

It was about three years ago, while I was taking the train from Boston to New York, that the implications were exposed. While I do artificially age some objects within the altarpieces, I tend to find older objects that seem to reveal a story. They have an inherent beauty to them, based on their worn and battered state. Beauty is not even the proper term. Sublime is a more passable word for what I am getting at. Artists, however, have conflated the two words, using them interchangeably, and that has caused no end to the confusion that confronts those removed from art world conversations. So, when someone talks about the beautiful qualities of something any reasonable person would find to be truly ugly, realize they really mean the sublime. But back to the train.

For those who do not regularly ride the train I need to set the stage. Lining the tracks there is always an accumulation of debris that is both accidental and intentional. In the same way that you might see a lone shoe or a forlorn recliner in the median of a highway, inadvertently ejected by a passing vehicle, some items make their way to the train’s pathway as a pure mishap. Then there are items that were obviously deliberately discarded. Mattresses, for one. A filthy, ragged, full-sized mattress is not blown by the wind over a twelve foot high retaining fence. And the range of the discarded objects is truly astonishing. Their condition is decrepit, at best, since once they end up on the train side of the fence they might be stuck there for decades.

As these soiled and sullied items briskly passed me by, I was drawn to their "beauty." They each had a story and the odd juxtapositions of equally odd objects was as poetic as the best Cornell shadowbox. Abruptly, without warning, I recognized what my great attraction to the articles was. I wanted to pluck them from their despair and disuse and place them within a new context; elevating their status within an artwork. This garbage was a metaphor for the transforming work of Christ on fallen humanity.

Trash. Refuse. The discarded stuff of the world… It can all be made new. Christ came not just to save humanity from the trash heap, but to transform each person (item) into a new creation. God sees something beautiful in the ugliness. The blotches and bruises are not fully erased because they tell the story of grace. I might not always provide my viewers with all the clues as to why I choose specific objects, but the story of grace and transformation is there for any who wish to see it.

Contemporary Altarpieces and the Italian Tradition

Ideas for artwork come from everywhere. For me, this is especially the case with my altarpiece assemblages. The first dozen were mostly conceived through reading I had undertaken in the mid-1990s, but that was just the starting point. As the series developed and there became a greater emphasis on the reliquary objects component, the overall design began to evolve. I don’t know that I even envisioned them as altarpieces, per se, initially. I am certain that the use of gilding was an afterthought, when I needed some kind of surface treatment to mask the freshly cut wood—weathered and grey on its other exposed surfaces.

Once I began the process of determining what type of objects should be used for the reliquaries for particular "saints," the form and direction took a new turn. When I asked a friend what object(s) might be appropriate for the St. Clive altarpiece she suggested Scrabble tiles. This impacted the entire composition of the work in ways I had not previously considered. Soon, I started finding objects that sparked ideas for new pieces and moved the constructions into a more conceptual realm—not based so closely on specific individuals.

Trips to antique shops and flea markets provided more than enough material to get me thinking. Old wire-rimmed spectacles brought to mind the accumulations of Arman, so I began collecting them for some undiscovered use. Cast iron bathtub claw feet would enable the pieces to come down off the wall and become more interactive. I did not, however, always know what some items would represent or in what way I would eventually incorporate them. One of my best finds, that impacted me greatly when I spotted it, though I did not know why, was a pair of battered, antique porcelain doll arms. I talked the dealer down to 50 cents. It took a few months of studying them to discover their meaning and in which piece they would work.

In October and November of 2006 I spent four weeks in Italy teaching a class on collage and assemblage for Gordon College. Until that point I had been scanning art history volumes in order to establish some of the design elements for my altarpieces. The opportunity to spend days studying functional altarpieces and reliquaries in churches, and others preserved in museums, was invaluable. I spent hour upon hour sketching and taking notes on architectural elements and ornamental structures. A flat photograph from only one view is simply not sufficient. Even detail photographs don’t provide adequate information about how the objects were created.

One day while cleaning out the studio spaces in the Italian convent where we lived and worked, I stumbled upon some spare fragments of old, punched metal screening. It isn’t that unusual of an item and I have even seen similar materials here in the U.S. In Italy, in the setting of a convent, and with imagery from churches and cathedrals swimming in my head, this provided a unique revelation. History is preserved in Italy’s architecture. There are ornamental embellishments on everything. The same types of designs appear inside and outside the buildings. The screen was reminiscent of the screen in a confessional. I had been sketching confessional booths for weeks at this point. The altarpiece I then had in mind would incorporate the idea of confession and would contain this golden brass screen in some way.

Again, this object provided just the initial concept. It would still take several weeks or months of sketching and planning to decipher the structure of the work and determine how the screen would be used in conjunction with other objects that had not yet been uncovered. Even though much of that has now been set down on paper, it will inevitably change once I begin building the structure. It always happens that way.

The process of producing these works is long. It often takes several years, but it always follows a similar pattern. The concept arises through something I have seen, read, or heard. I probe the idea through sketching, reading, and other forms of research. Some specific texts and objects assert themselves as appropriate and then I compile all the elements and design the structure. At that point one might imagine that I jump right in to finish the work. Instead, I work for a bit, put the piece side for awhile, then keep slowly revisiting it over several months or perhaps a couple years. I have found that the longer I let the idea gestate, the more it becomes multilayered, with the end result that I am seeking.