Biggie and Shortie

Biggie:

However, distorted the reality; my art is simply a reflection. Focusing on the enjoyment that I derive from the making process. I create from my experience. I am an athlete, a carpenter, a sculptor, a welder and a smith. Physicality and tactility are intimate forces in my life. I cannot help but leave my mark visible in my work.

I have founded my art practice on the exploration of my personal experience as a male growing up in rural Appalachia. Baseball hats, steel-toed boots, pocket knives, and other markers of labor have been objects that I consider to be defining elements in my life.

 I often choose to substitute materials swapping steel for fabric, or ceramic for wood. I rely on elements of craftsmanship in conjunction with conscious material choice to impart a brief impression of my prolonged contact with, and relationship to, the original item. Through this I attempt to show my understating of objects that I find deeply routed in the psyche of rural America.

Recently, I have made an effort to move away from clear depictions of the articles concentrated in my past, and have begun an exploration into my present existence. The result is more abstracted and conceptual as I sort through my current experiences as an art-school-dropout-turned-contactor-returned-to-the-realm-of-the-art-student. I am drawn to the conversation that materials have with their environment, and am continually seeking to understand why materials are segregated and compartmentalized into sources and resources: place and product. By extension, I find myself considering the manner in which people are classified or dismissed as resources

The nuances and meanings of material are ingrained in every culture, and by adulthood we believe that we so clearly understand those meanings that we often disregard them, much like we do with people. Subverting, disguising, and exposing those nuances of material in myself, and my social environment, is an ongoing investigation for me. I find comfort in making, ruminating through touch. I feel no shame in my desire to create objects. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a hat is just a hat; but a hat is so much already.

Shortie:

I have founded my art practice on the exploration of my experience as a male growing up in rural Appalachia. Baseball hats, steel-toed boots, pocket knives, and other markers of labor have been objects that I consider to be defining elements in my life.

I alter the material from that of the original to make it more appropriately reflect my understanding of those important objects. I rely on elements of craftsmanship in conjunction with conscious material choice to impart a brief impression of my prolonged contact with, and relationship to, the original item. Physicality and tactility are intimate forces in my life and I cannot help but leave my mark visible

Recently, I have moved away from duplicating articles concentrated in my past, and have begun exploring my present existence as an art-school-dropout-turned-contactor-returned-to-art-student. I am drawn to the conversation that materials have with their environment. Why are materials segregated and compartmentalized into sources and resources: places and products? By extension, I consider the manner in which people are classified or dismissed as resources.

The nuances of material are ingrained in every culture, and by adulthood we understand and often disregard those meanings, much like we do with people. Subverting, disguising, and exposing these nuances in myself, and my social environment, is an ongoing investigation for me. I find comfort in making, and I feel no shame in my desire to create objects. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a hat is just a hat; but a hat is so much already.